Symmetry and Imperfection
by Chaos-Rose
Summary: Dark fic taking place pre-ANH. Complete! Chapter 23 up on 8/18.
1. Symmetry and Imperfection - Prologue

~

Symmetry and Imperfection

Prologue

~

Moving down the industrial gray Departures corridor at Damned Far Station, the young woman looked much like any other refugee. Her clothing, though of good quality, was the worse for wear. The dark brown tunic and buff undershirt hung from her as if she had recently lost significant weight, and her leggings were bagged at the knees. The braid of black hair was disheveled, and her skin dulled by days spent under artificial light. Her worldly possessions were slung in a duffel across her back and her tiny infant rode in a carrier on her chest. 

Shouldering her way through the crowd, she paid little attention to the odors of the aging station. Poor ventilation, and too many bodies of too many species washed with minimally recycled graywater contributed to an oppressive atmosphere. Touts and hawkers lined the spaces between departure bays, selling over-priced and questionable food and drink. Recruiters called out promises of grand adventure on myriad new worlds or promised mountains of platinum to be found in this or that asteroid belt. The young woman passed them all with not so much as a glance. 

Like so many others, she was running away from or running to, seeking refuge in the wild space beyond the most far-flung Imperial outposts. 

With scant hope in her blue eyes, Abhaia scanned the schedules of departing ships, bound for worlds with names like Last Chance, Bastard's Luck, and Pair O' Dice. The prices for steerage transport were exorbitant, even if she dropped her baggage and went aboard with the clothing she stood up in, she would never have enough to ... 

Tears formed in her eyes and she looked down at her sleeping daughter. The Sight had been true; her daughter was destined for another path. 

With bowed head, she retreated into a corner, unslung her bag and sank onto it. She had not chosen this path, and it made her deeply angry. Even as she had felt her child's life begin from the forced seeding of her womb, she held no anger toward the innocent. When she realized that her child's life would be lived as breeding stock, she knew she had to escape. 

Even the pain and blood that accompanied her arrival had kindled no anger or hatred, only determination to protect the new life. 

The anger and hate was reserved for Abhaia's grandfather and his adherents. 

"I will bring to him what he fears most," she told the sleeping infant "I will bring to him that which he has become." 

Her escape had been bloody, too. In fleeing, she had killed her own father and several others. In her erratic run across the Outer Rim, she left a trail of a dozen dead Jedi in her wake. 

"Not a bad tally for a worthless Healer, eh?" 

The child opened her blue eyes and yawned, staring placidly up at her mother. A wave of fierceness and love swept through the young woman as she regarded her child. This was her child; wholly hers as the man who had sired her died at her father's side. 

A smile curved her lips. They had been stunned when she drew her grandmother's lightsaber and charged them. The will to destroy her tormentors and a primal fury so deep and basic had driven every other thought out of her head. The meek little healer whom they so scorned had fought like demonspawn, and killed without hesitation. 

Abhaia had even removed her rapist's tender bits with a flick of her blade, just before she removed his head. 

Some would say that she had fallen to the Dark, but she would say that she had embraced Dark without forsaking Light. Certainly, her grandfather claimed that his deeds were all for the Light, done out of love for the Jedi. Breeding an army of Force-strong warriors was his goal, and he took all women who showed even a glimmer of sensitivity. 

He also killed whose spirits he could not break, claiming that they were of the Dark and had to be destroyed. 

If anything, he rivaled Darth Vader in evil. At least he never claimed his actions to be anything but of the Dark. 

Banishing the thoughts, she instead filled her mind with her child. Hiding on the world of Heca in the last trimester of her pregnancy, she had time to study some ancient texts of the Danu that had been her mother's. A name in those texts called out to her and she had named her child Arien - which meant shining or enduring pledge. 

This little one, who she had never expected to truly care for, had come to fill her life. Lifting her out of the carrier, she smiled at her daughter's enthusiastic kicking and wriggling. Even in the womb, this one had been restless, impatient to come out to the world. 

So impatient that she had decided to come out early by a month and had been in a tearing hurry ever since. 

Arien made sounds that anyone would associate with a happy baby, but to her mother, they were more than simple noise. She bent her forehead to her child's and reached for the Force. Arien was content in a dry, clean jumper, she was getting a little hungry, but mostly she wanted to look around. 

::: You are Arien, daughter of Abhaia, daughter of Keille, daughter of Esabail ::: 

She immersed herself in the bright glow of the infant's spirit and against all her mental preparation for this moment, she began to cry. 

Almost a year of running, fear for their lives, anger and hatred for their pursuers had taken their toll on Abhaia. A tear splashed on Arien's face and she began to cry thinly, echoing her mother's distress. 

"Shhh, sweeting, shh. It's going to be all right." 

And it would be. Arien would grow to adulthood with her Force potential locked away, free of the Jedi and free from fear of the Empire. The texts of the Danu had been specific on how to block the use of the Force, seeing to it that while the sensitivity would remain, the ability to use the Force would be contained. It would take exceptional power to break the block that she had placed even while Arien was still growing inside her. 

She had destroyed those texts just before she left Heca, and one of her grandfather's Jedi who had determined what she had done. 

Under her attentive soothing, Arien quieted, then began to root about for a breast. Abhaia adjusted her cloak and tunic, then slid cross-legged to the floor, and opened her bag. 

As her daughter nursed, Abhaia sorted though what she would take with her, and what she would leave as a legacy for her daughter. Sadly, there was not much. Clothing for both, all the sundry accoutrements of an infant, toiletries, and that was about it. 

There was nothing left of her mother or her grandmother to give to her daughter. It was as if they had never lived. All that was left were Abhaia's memories of those strong, proud women. 

::: Arien ::: 

The child's mind responded to her touch with an expression of utter contentment. Abhaia cleared her mind of everything except her love for her daughter, of her joy in knowing that Arien would grow up strong and free. Images of her mother and grandmother were next, given to her with feelings of pride. If this to be the legacy that she had, if all her child would have were dim memories of feelings and images, she wanted them to be the very best ones. 

Arien's mind accepted each imprint with wonder, and then with growing sleepiness as she began to digest her meal. 

Using her healer's talent, Abhaia coaxed a ringing belch from the baby and tenderly wiped a dribble of milk from her lips. Infants of eight weeks were simply not long on conversation. 

"You could have stayed awake long enough to finish the other side," Abhaia mock-scolded. 

Sorting though the clothing, she pulled out a simple hooded robe in a rich cinnamon brown. After some consideration, she set it aside. Nothing that could be remotely associated with the Jedi could go with her daughter. She hastily divided her things from Arien's, bundling the child's clothing and other items into a large scarf and tied it pack-style. Her own clothing she pared to three changes with socks and undergarments, and hid her grandmother's lightsaber in the spring-loaded clip in the loose sleeve of her tunic. 

Everything else went into the trash chute. 

A ripple in the Force nudged her. Familiar power signatures faint with distance came to her perception. 

It was time. 

She stood slowly, marking every moment as she slung the light pack with her clothing on her back and picked up Arien's bundle. She moved down the corridor for the area reserved for light to medium freighters, looking for one of the Oathkin. 

Oathkin never ventured past the Outer Rim, never carried - and in fact seemed to dislike - Jedi, and stayed far below the notice of the Empire. Composed largely of females, they escaped the notice all but the most paranoiac sector commanders. 

The Oathkin would also take on any infant or child given to them, raise, train, and care for it. The ones that she had spoken to carried it as if it were a holy obligation. 

It was Arien's best chance for survival. In her meditations, she had come to this point repeatedly. Each time she did not leave Arien with the Oathkin, disaster followed. 

A young woman dressed in the colorful garb of the Kin stood talking with two older women. No more than twenty, her short brown hair set off a pair of mischievous brown eyes and a wide, warm smile. To Abhaia's Force sense, she gleamed with good health, intelligence, joy, and a kind heart. 

This one. 

Abhaia look one long look at her sleeping daughter; her fine dark hair was just starting to curl and her perfect lips were pink against her fair skin. The tears rose from a knot in her chest. She was so little! So perfect! It was not right that this was happening! 

Now with the choice upon her, Abhaia felt that the pain must surely kill her. She sank to her knees, gasping for air against the tearing sensation in her chest. If there were gods to listen, she sent out one last plea for mercy. 

The gods were silent, the Force flowed on as she rocked her daughter. 

When she could see past the tears again, she found herself looking into the face of the young woman. There was no mischief in her eyes now, and the smiling mouth was solemn. 

"She's a very pretty baby." 

Abhaia nodded, "S-s-she's a good girl. I love..." She choked on the words and sobbed. "Her n-name is Arien." 

"Arien. That's pretty. What does it mean?" 

Abhaia gently lifted the still-sleeping child from her carrier and cradled her in her arms. "Shining promise. Enduring pledge." Like so much of the Danu words, her child's name had more than one meaning. 

The young woman held out her arms and Abhaia placed her daughter in them, stifling the wail that bloomed behind her breastbone. "We'll take care of her. I'll give the Word of my Clan Mother on it. She'll be like my own." 

_But I want her to be mine! _

Instead of screaming, Abhaia set Arien's bag next to the woman and bent down to kiss her daughter. 

::: Your mother loves you, my precious one. I will always love you. May the Force be with you ::: 

With the Force, Abhaia sent the baby a little deeper into sleep; she prolonged the contact, burning Arien's scent, the feel of her skin, the gentle puffs of milk-breath into her memory. 

Then she was spinning, tearing herself away and running down the corridor as fast as her legs would carry her. She slammed into beings, tripped over droids and finally just lay where she fell, weeping. 

In time, she came back to herself. Arien's Force signature was already far away and she should be, too. 

Not even bothering to wipe her face, she stepped up to the nearest ticketing kiosk. 

"Put me on the first ship to anywhere." 

~ 


	2. Symmetry and Imperfection - 1

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 1

~

Three months later...

~ 

Ybarr had only two kinds of weather: Hot and wet, or cold and wet. 

In the warm season, the place was ripe with gassy emanations from bogs and swamps that comprised the small scarely-habitable land masses. In the cold season, everything was covered with dirty, wet snow. 

In a filth-filled alley, Darth Vader stood over the snow-dusted corpse of another Jedi. 

This was nothing new for him. 

What was comparatively new was that he had not killed this one. 

It seemed that there was an intense power struggle among the fugitive Jedi. As far as Vader could determine, they were doing their level best to kill each other off before he could hunt them down and do it himself. 

In the past year, seventy-three dead Jedi had been found in Mid and Outer Rim worlds. All had died in lightsaber duels, but those most recently slain were very different. 

The angle of the cuts suggested a small opponent. A trail of bootprints leaving one location pointed to a petite woman. Poor quality holos managed to capture a cloaked figure near the areas where the two of the bodies were found. One security cam managed to catch the tail end of a duel, but no amount of image enhancement could reveal the face of the woman. 

Vader had watched in appreciation as the woman took out her opponent's legs with a shallow nicks to the back of the thighs, doubled him over with a shallow slash to the abdomen, and ended with an enthusiastic decapitation. Her style was simple, graceful, elegant, and stunningly vicious. He had dueled with and killed hundreds of Jedi and had never seen anything quite like it. 

He felt that he might be catching up with her. The corpse at his feet was only a day or two old and marked in her distinctive style. 

Perhaps he would take this mystery woman as his apprentice. 

If his own master could be circumvented, that is. 

The Emperor had been distracted of late, leaving Vader to his own devices and Vader was only too pleased to take full advantage of the situation. Too soon, his master would tire of whatever it was that held his attention and Vader would be called back to Coruscant and the intrigues that brewed there. 

Vader was of two minds about this; while he needed to be on Coruscant to keep a tally on the knives aimed at his back, he was at his most effective out here on the fringes of the Empire. He brought these people Imperial law and order, and he enforced it by piling up as many corpses as were needed to make the lesson stick. 

He turned to the squad of stormtroopers that had reported the body to him. "Does anyone remember seeing anything?" 

"No, my Lord." 

Of course not. The residents - he could not call them citizens - of this mudball made the worst dive in the most scum-ridden part of Mos Eisley seem a bastion of civic duty and moral rectitude in comparison. 

"Perhaps I should question some them myself." Fear and a touch of the dark side had shown a salubrious effect on many a faltering memory. In fact, Vader would wager that those whom he had allowed to keep their minds would likely never forget anything else until their dying day. "Round up your usual informants and bring them to me." 

"Yes, my Lord." 

Vader stepped over the decaying remains and headed back to the garrison. 

~ 

Abhaia slipped from shadow to shadow as she stalked the man who thought he was stalking her. 

Her grandfather had stopped sending ambitious young men after her and now sent members of his inner circle. It meant that she needed to move around more often, sometimes she would depart a given location mere hours after her arrival. 

The grandiose fool who had been her last kill informed her that his orders were not to kill her, but to bring her back alive. If necessary, he was to ensure her cooperation with her child's life. Ke Te Sune died cursing her as she casually lopped him limb from limb. 

Her would-be stalker stopped and turned. Abhaia froze, holding so still that a casual observer would question whether she was even breathing. 

"Abhaia. Come out, girl. I know you're here." 

There was a time in her life when she would have responded immediately to the authority in that voice. Not so long ago, she would have trembled in fear at his gaze, she would have made haste to do as she was told. 

Now she would make him know fear. Cold filled her veins, ran up her spine to her brain. Everything in her vision seemed sharply delineated, even the edges of the shadows in the deserted loading bay seemed sharp enough to cut flesh from bone. 

She held her silence, watching him turn about, feeling his eyes pass over her and move on. 

Lip curled, she sneered at his back. She could read his tension without using the Force, see the first tendrils of doubt winding through the muscles of his arms, neck and shoulders. As he moved to continue his search, she rushed from her niche, tucking and rolling to come up behind a tank of liquid nitrogen. 

The man jumped, drawing his saber and turning in mid-air, only to find an empty hanger behind him. Abhaia was close enough to see the sweat beaded his upper lip, and to hear his rapid, shallow breathing. Close enough to see the white hairs in the black. Close enough to see the wrinkles and the start of sagging jowls. 

Close enough to smell his fear. 

She was enjoying this game, drawing her grandfather out by killing his treasured warriors while leaving a trail for the Sith Lord to follow. 

There had been a battle fleet dropping out of hyperspace when she had been leaving Ybarr. Maybe she had attracted Vader's attention. 

A soft chime captured her wandering attention. Her quarry pulled a comlink from his belt and cursed in a deeply heartfelt fashion. 

Tailing him all the way to an impounded light freighter, she watched as he popped an access panel. A few minutes later, he had wired the comlink to the communications array and opened the channel. 

"Yes, my Master?" 

"Have you found her?" 

The sound of that voice, so arrogant and assured, rimmed her vision with red. 

"I thought I had her in sight, my master, but it may not be her after all." The man desperately wanted to believe this, if his expression was any indication. 

"You've been around the brat since she was in diapers, Melenk. How could you mistake her for anyone else?" 

"For one, she's doesn't have her get with her. Do you really think she'd relinquish something she's killed to keep?" He hesitated then blurted, "And the Force signature is almost completely different." 

Abhaia nearly stopped breathing for real. Age and maturity had an effect on the way a person resonated in the Force, yes, but though the years the basic signature was always the same. Only a change to the Dark side could scramble the... 

The conclusion stunned her. 

_It can't be. I don't feel any different._

She looked down at herself, almost expecting to see black armor. 

She remembered listening when the adults thought she was not. How they talked about Vader, and who he had been before. About how not one person knew that the Dark had swallowed Anakin Skywalker whole and spit out Darth Vader. No one had made the connection between Skywalker's reported death and the rise of the Sith Lord nearly two years later. 

But her...? 

Abhaia listened with half an ear as her grandfather berated his underling. 

She was not proud of some of the things she had done. 

Giving Arien to the Kin had been the last sane decision she had made. After that, the blur of planets and stations, the anger at the people chasing her, the exhaustion, hunger, grief, and fear washed together in her mind. 

Stars exploded across her vision and she wondered why she was lying on the floor. When she tried to get up, it happened again. 

"Don't move, you Darksider witch." The voice was rough with hate and triumph. Two pairs of boots filled her narrowing vision. 

"We have her, my Master!" 

~


	3. Symmetry and Imperfection - 2

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 2

~ 

Vader stood on the bridge of the Star Destroyer _Triumphant_, watching out of the corner of his eye - and with no little amusement - as two ensigns tried to decide who was to approach him. To all that might look, Vader was simply brooding. 

Over what that might be, none of them really wanted to know. 

The two fine products of the Academy were reduced to a round of Blade, Rock and Cloth, best two out of three, the loser to deliver the message. 

Cloth/Rock. 

Cloth/Cloth. 

Blade/Rock. 

Blade/Cloth. 

The winner quit the area so fast that he nearly left a hole in the air. The losing ensign glared at his fellow officer's retreating back while muttering curse-laden passages from Kaaffaki epic war hymns. 

The youngster composed himself and then approached Vader, stopping at attention and just out of arm's reach. 

"My Lord Vader, sir." 

Vader turned and regarded the ensign, letting his the sound of his respirator fill silence until a faint sheen of sweat appeared on the officer's upper lip. 

"Ensign Jachim Garza, report." 

It always unsettled the new junior officers when he knew their names. This one paled, but did not waver from his parade-ground formality. 

"My Lord Vader, there is a message from the Governor Simbalden of Lorres. They've found another dead Jedi." The ensign hesitated and then added, "Well, they've found most of him, that is." 

Most of him? Interesting. 

Vader spoke quietly, "Rear Admiral Ozzel." 

If the senior officers under Vader's command wished to keep breathing, it meant keeping an ear tuned; he did not like to repeat himself. 

Vader watched in distaste as the Ozzel crossed the bridge. A lackluster career spit-shined by political allies and ambition had earned him a spot in Vader's battle group. How long the man would last in that position was a matter of debate. Ozzel's conservatism and over-cautious nature might keep him alive if he made no egregious errors. 

"Yes, my Lord?" 

"I will attend to this matter personally. You will continue to Algeda and assist Moff Eirad with pacification efforts." 

Algeda was a system of vital economic importance; six asteroid fields rich with metals surrounded a red giant, and though the moons around the three gas giants in the system were seriously unstable, they provided rare gasses in vast quantity. The primitive life forms surrounding thermal vents on one moon were a vital additive to every vessel's environmental system. Massive refineries and foundries moved about the system, turning raw material into commodities for the Outer Rim shipbuilding trade. 

Those commodities had been turning up in Rebel shipyards and arms shipments. 

Vader dismissed the ensign with a curt gesture and departed the bridge as Ozzel murmured something appropriately obsequious. 

Pacification was a prime duty of the Imperial Navy. At this point in thier careers most of the officers could accomplish the mission while half asleep. Unless the Algeda system was infested with Jedi, Vader could just as easily com this in. 

However, there were political considerations. Vader was not prone to false humility; he was the second most powerful man in the Empire. He would, someday soon, be the most powerful. That meant his actions or inaction spoke for the interests of the Empire. While Algeda was important, one of his primary missions was the utter eradication of the Jedi. 

An express tube running the length of the ship took him directly to the main flight deck. He did not need to check if his personal shuttle was ready, it always was. He thought it inconvenient that TIE fighters did not yet have hyperspace capabilities, the small craft were powerful, highly maneuverable and boasted heavy armament for their size. 

The _Lambda_ - class shuttle dropped out of the main bay and unfolded its stabilizers. Vader moved out of the destroyer's range and reoriented for the jump to hyperspace. 

~ 

Abhaia lay on the steel of the deck and tried to think past the pain in her head. Her vision narrowed as if she was looking down a long tube. 

_Concussion. Blast. How did he sneak up on me?_

Her Healer's training kicked in and she dove within herself, seeking to minimize the damage. The external injury bled furiously, but the internal damage was her primary concern. The dura held tight to the skull, but had minor tears from the shear forces generated by the blows. Her brainstem was uninjured, but the rotation of her brain in relation to the point of impact had started a hemorrhage. She was grateful that there was no tearing of the axons or the myelin sheath, those were complicated and time-consuming repairs. 

She worked quickly, letting her body stay limp and unthreatening. It was going to be a hasty repair job, but she did not have time for anything else. 

As if from a great distance, she felt a boot impact against her ribs that flipped her over. 

"Knocked her stupid, Master. She'll give us no trouble." 

"Any sign of the infant?" 

"No, my Master. None at all." 

Even as she worked, concentrating on the utter serenity required for healing, a fury she had never dreamed existed began to bloom within her. 

Grandfather gave his orders. Find the child, kill whomever might raise a fuss, and use it to ensure Abhaia's cooperation. 

The damage was stabilized and her healing powers altered under the tide of her rage. Even so, she remained quiescent even as the second man grabbed her by the front of her tunic and lifted her. 

"I can't believe that this little thing gave the others all that much trouble," he sneered. "Look at her! She's pocket-sized!" 

"Do you think that every Darksider has to be built like a wall and wearing black armor, Karris?" 

Abhaia felt herself lifted and dumped across the second man's shoulders like a sack of grain. 

"Fool! Did you even search her? She's armed!" 

"She's all but brain dead, you old coward!" Karris turned and began to walk away. "Look at you, afraid of a woman!" 

Abhaia gathered her power and struck at her assailant. 

Seizing Karris' brain with the Force, she set about ripping it apart. In less than a second, the centers of the brain that controlled speech and voluntary movement were dead, the neurons overloaded and fried beyond repair. As he dropped, she rolled from his shoulders and came to her feet with Grandmother Isabail's lightsaber in hand. 

~ 


	4. Symmetry and imperfection - 3

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 3

~ 

Vader considered the man's head on the table in front of him and contemplated death. 

Death was the great leveler. Weak or mighty, death came eventually to all. He had no particular fear of his own death; sometimes he thought that it might be a great relief. 

Just not yet. There was still much to do. 

The Emperor feared death; he was obsessed with finding secret of immortality, much as any asteroid belt boomer might be obsessed with finding a hot rock. Indeed, Palpatine coveted immortality as if it were another rare object that he could display as evidence of his power. 

Others looked for a legacy; something to leave behind them after they had "gone." Some compiled massive fortunes, some erected complex monuments, while others sought out and accumulated knowledge or fame. All of them searched wildly for a way to keep their names and memory - and thus a small portion of their selves - alive. 

In the end, it mattered very little. 

Fortunes were squandered or lost. Monuments crumbled to rubble and were built over even as new regimes fed on the leavings of the old. Knowledge faded or was superseded. Fame burned out and the ashes of all were swept into anonymity. 

Even as powerful as he was now, Vader knew that in a mere century he would be just a chapter in a history text. In a thousand years, he might merit a line. In ten thousand, he would be a footnote of interest only to scholars immersed in the esoteric. Not much humbled him, but the thought of the ultimate death - the death of memory - was ... disturbing, Sith philosophical considerations notwithstanding. 

In the end, dead was dead, whether one was a Sith Lord or a street sweeper. 

This could just as easily be the head of a street sweeper as of a Jedi Knight, death had removed all hints of personality or inclination from the features. 

Vader had a vague memory of this one as someone who had passed through the Temple when he had been Padawan Skywalker all those years ago. 

_Ki Te Sune._ Memory whispered to him in that dead man's voice. 

Ki Te Sune had been called by the Council for a formal reprimand and then sent to a far outpost so that he might meditate upon his errors. It had been quite a scandal at the time. 

It would appear that Ki Te Sune had made his last error, and paid high for it. 

According to the post-mortem, Ki Te Sune had been alive during the serial amputations of his limbs but not for his decapitation. The head was intact, and most of the torso, though it appeared that scavengers had run off with one hand, some toes and a large amount one buttock. Official cause of death was exsanguination into the abdominal cavity. 

What was even more interesting, at least to Vader, were the fading power signatures left at the site. If this had been a battle between a Light and Dark Jedi, there would be a muddle of unsettled energy. In a very short time, there would be a masking effect generated that would unsettle any Force-sensitive who walked through it. 

As it was, Vader could read the signatures quite clearly, which meant only one thing: the Jedi whose remains were in front of him had been a Darksider, as was his killer. 

~ 

Abhaia and Melenk moved in the dance of death. He was less confident now that she had laid open one cheek, and he circled with the blue blade of his saber extended in defense. 

There was a time not so long ago when she had detested violence. Trained as a Healer, Abhaia knew the consequences of violence the way her tongue knew the interior of her mouth. She understood pain, sickness, and death as parts of life. They were constants, unavoidable and inexorable. Violence was something to detest and avoid, it was senseless even when puported to have a purpose. It caused suffering that a Healer was supposed to alleviate. It left gaping wounds on the souls and bodies of the survivors. 

Grandmother Esabail had been struck down by her own husband; dying with a look of serenity and acceptance before her clothing fell to the ground, empty. Although Abhaia had been just past her third nameday, she remembered it as clearly as if it had happened last night. Abhaia's own mother had died under her hands twelve years later, even before she could begin to repair the broken, bleeding thing that had been Keille. 

She knew entirely too well the price that violence had exacted from her. Throwing herself into her training, Abhaia had excised the thought of violence from her mind, denying it sustenance as she might starve a budding malignancy or a parasite. 

She thought herself safe. Nobody noticed the dull little Healer until they needed her. Her black hair was pulled into a sensible bun, her blue eyes ever downcast, her bronzy skin untouched by cosmetics and her dress purposely nondescript. Grandfather and his men brought back stunning women, laid with them and brought them with child. Not one ever noticed her other than to register her report of another birth in the quarters. 

Melenk rushed in, his blade a blur as he slashed at her head. He had given up trying to talk to her and dodge her blade at the same time and had settled for trying to get out of here alive. 

Abhaia ducked, rolling to the left, around, then behind her opponent. Flicking the tip of her green blade at the back of his knee, she neatly cut the tendons and sent him crashing to the floor as he tried turn with her. 

Violence that had lain dormant inside her, gathering strength, now found its outlet. 

In a flurry of nicks and slashes, she cut the tendons in his other leg, his sword arm and delivered a stab just above the fourth vertebra, transecting his spinal cord. His lightsaber dropped to the ground and lay there until she picked it up and deactivated it while he lay on the ground, everything below his shoulders dead weight. 

The younger man, Karris, lay on his back, ashen-faced but expressionless from the damage she had wreaked in his head. 

"So. This is the Dark." Abhaia clipped Grandmother's saber to her belt and Force-flipped the old man over. "I can say that if you soulless, spineless lackeys represent the Light, then I'm Darth Vader." 

"Abhaia... please..." The old man's pleadings sounded like the gobbling of a Rooter bird being trussed for the slaughter. He promised her everything, honor, prestige, fortune, even to let her go. 

"There's one thing I want. Only one thing." She dragged the younger man to lie at his cohort's side. "If you can give it to me, I will heal you both and set you free." 

"Name it. Whatever you want." 

Desperation rolled off both men in palpable waves. 

"It's really something very simple." Her voice quavered on the last word and tears rose to her eyes. "It's so simple that trillions of women do it every day with no access to the Force, no lightsabers, no real training. It's all I want, it's everything I want." 

Kneeling in front of them, she held her hands out in supplication, "I want to hold my daughter again. I want to show her to my mother and grandmother and see them love her as they loved me. I want to have Mama brush my baby's hair and Gramma tell her stories. I want to wake up at home, in my bed and have them be in the kitchen, or the garden, or helping teach my little girl to be a strong, intelligent, loving woman. Can you give me that? I want a normal life." 

She felt Karris gathering his power for a strike and her blue eyes blazed like a new-born sun. Turning her healing power on him, she ruptured every major vein and artery with a thought and watched as life, once so sacred to her, ended in a welter of scarlet. 

Studying her handiwork, Abhaia turned back to the Melenk. Though his eyes were squeezed shut, tears ran down his face. Gently, Abhaia laid his hand on his cheek. 

"Can you, oh powerful and great warrior for all that is right, make me back into the child that I was?" 

No answer was forthcoming. 

When she stood once more, wiping her tears on the sleeve of her tunic, there was a spreading scarlet lake on the hanger floor. Carefully searching her kills, she picked everything of value from the bodies, transferring the loot into her own belt pouch. 

Pausing, she weighed the comlink in her hand. It was a locked frequency, good only for communicating with the base of origin. 

She opened the channel. 

"Grandfather?" 

~ 


	5. Symmetry and Imperfection - 4

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 4

~ 

"Abhaia?" Perran Jasc felt a clammy, cold sensation grip his body. Melenk and Karris were the two canniest warriors he had. As humiliating as it had been to send them out after a runaway Healer, a mere girl, it had been necessary. The child was a commodity far too valuable to be left in the hands of its traitor mother. 

Abhaia's kill-trail was attracting unwanted attention. He had to being her in, and deal with her as he had dealt with his wife and daughter. 

"None other." The words came on a soft, almost affectionate laugh. "Melenk and Karris can't talk right now. In fact, they'll never speak again in this reality unless Vader has made a study of necromancy." 

The girl might well have been discussing how she had enjoyed a particularly fine pastry for all the concern in her voice. 

"Abhaia, granddaughter, listen to me. You have managed to attract some undesirable notice, child. Now, I can help you out of..." 

"What notice is that, grandfather? I've managed to nick Vader's curiosity? I figured on that." 

The satisfaction in her voice was unmistakable even as he wanted to disbelieve it. How could he have misread the situation so badly, how could he have underestimated the girl's will? She had shown no signs of having a backbone before, even as a child, she had refused to learn any offensive combat skills whatsoever. 

Judging from the reports that had reached him, that had changed. She had perverted her Healer's talent into an offensive weapon and used it with impunity. Even her style of combat was based upon her knowledge of humanoid physiology. Who would have thought the girl would turn feral? Her grandmother had been a philosopher, her mother a historian, but Abhaia's behavior had never indicated that she had absorbed any of her foremothers' treason, much less any Darksider leanings. 

"You see," she continued, "I've been doing a lot of thinking. I had a lot of time before your men caught up with me. It took some time for the last piece to fall into place; if nothing else, I owe you thanks for sending that bolthead Melenk after me." 

Jasc's thin lips all but disappeared as he clenched his jaw. Melenk and Karris were dead; he knew the fact the way that he knew his own name. Damn the girl! Her death-trail had not spared any Jedi who crossed her path, whether they were of his group or not. Now, in addition to Vader, he had to contend with other factions backtrailing her, trying to find out where this virago had come from, and if there were others like her. 

In time, Perran Jasc told himself that he would welcome the attentions of the other fugitives, but developments were critical in this stage of the plan. He was doing his best to prevent the bloodlines of the Jedi from being wiped out of the galaxy. If some liberties had been taken, some small pains afforded to the beings whose blood was worth more than platinum, the long-term goal would be worth it. In time, they would be hailed as saviors, as heroes, as the champions of justice and of light who defeated the Emperor and his abomination, Vader. 

However, at this point in his strategy, other Jedi might not understand or agree with his methods. 

Abhaia continued, "When he noted that my signature had... altered, it gave me the last clue that I needed. I always wondered how someone that was known, had been known for many years could suddenly 'go Dark.' This always puzzled me, how nobody saw Palpatine, or Dooku, or Vader coming. It doesn't happen all at once, Grandfather. It happens in increments, gradually changing _everything_." 

Abhaia's voice broke, and through the Force, a wave of grief and rage smashed into him, robbing him of breath. 

"I'm not who I was, if I ever was that person. I will keep my daughter free and safe. I will bring you down. I will destroy you and all of your plans. I will see you dead and if I must, I will do it with the last breath in my body. This I swear and this I choose!" The last was delivered in a growl that raised the hair on the back of Jasc's neck. 

"Darksider! You put your whole family in danger ..." 

"What family? You killed them. You killed the women you abducted if they didn't knuckle under fast enough. You commit atrocity upon atrocity and call yourself a Jedi. You are the abomination! You are the Darksider!" Abhaia's voice dropped and he heard a trace of the gentle Healer she had been. "I'm... not proud of killing, of the pain I've willingly inflicted. I can't justify it, but it will keep my child safe, and if I have to burn the whole damn galaxy to do it, I will." 

The matter-of-fact statement convinced him, more than anything else she had said that she was in deadly earnest. 

"The Dark swallow you..." 

"And may you see in me all that you deny in yourself. Send your misled warriors, Grandfather, but in the end you must deal with the Dark of your creation. Find me if you can." 

A crunch and a squeal of feedback was followed the polite contralto tones of the computer; "Your signal has been terminated." 

~ 

The light freighter _Maze Dancer_ was small, and to all scrutiny, too old and worn to be worth stealing. From the small autocafe, Abhaia had been quietly observing the comings and goings of the docking ring denizens, bit so far nobody had approached the ship. 

She stood patiently, drinking a caffaperkie, luxuriating in the feel of a full stomach and warming her hands on the white ceramic mug. Five minutes in a public 'fresher had washed the blood out of her hair and allowed her to change. Her bloody clothing was in the recycling system of the station, along with her long braid of black hair. 

Visits to small second-hand shops and a chandler allowed her to rid herself of a reasonable amount of the stolen funds, but without having too much in the way of conspicuously new or pricey goods. She was now dressed in a loose gray shipsuit, soft black mid-calf boots, a utility belt with a blaster, and a billed cap pulled low. To all appearances, she was simply hire-crew awaiting her boarding call. 

The station's command sounded shift change, and people poured into the corridors. A bulk freighter's tender sounded a boarding klaxon, the officer at the gate hollering, "All hands! All hands! Final call!" as the crew assembled. A launch from a passenger liner disgorged a flutter of colorfully clad tourists into the dull corridor. 

Hefting her duffel, she worked her way into the crowd, then down the passageway to the lock for the _Maze Dancer_. She was not worried about the security measures here, there were no retinal scanners or DNA matching equipment. Those who were this far out on the Outer Rim valued their anonymity as much as stations like this one valued their clientele. Slipping the memory stick into the slot, she was gratified that neither Karris nor Melenk had thought to program any other password. 

Once in the lock, she closed and dogged it shut, changing the indicator light from the green of a clear lock to the yellow that warned of imminent departure. 

The ship was joined to the station via the lock and the umbilicals that supplied air and water, or pumped out the environmental wastes. A small panel just outside the cofferdam let her check her balance with the station environmental authority and deduct the charges from the landing bond before she disengaged. The entry to the ship was unlocked, and once in the cockpit, Abhaia noticed that instead of being shut down, then engines had been left on standby. 

The navicomp gave her plenty of destinations to consider, from the Soruura system with its hundred moons to the specialized tech worlds of Kamino or Deka. If she wanted to disappear, she could. She had a ship, the basic training to pilot and navigate it, and many reasons to want to lose herself. 

For a moment, she allowed herself to be caught by that image: Starting over. Becoming someone else. Being free. 

_... and leave those women and children to suffer as grandfather's bloodstock. _

She tapped her fingers on the edge of the console, sifting through the bits and pieces of information she had picked up in her time as a fugitive. It was amazing what you could hear while traveling in steerage. Where one might by drugs, or classified weaponry, or who what syndicates were hiring. There was even a recruiting station of sorts on most ships, though of a type that would be frowned on by both Empire and Alliance. 

What she needed was some time; even a Healer had to make time for her own healing. Tears pricked her eyes and blurred the console in front of her. 

_I'm not a Healer. Not anymore._

Suddenly she was shaking, crying so hard that she could scarcely breathe, sickened by everything that she had done since the day she decided to turn and fight instead of running. The images in her mind were so brutally clear that she covered her eyes with her hands, trying to deny the sight. The fear, anger and shame were overwhelming her. The self-loathing was a black hole ripping her soul apart and sucking her into a place where light could not exist. 

She was a Healer, and she had used that gift to just to kill Melenk and Karris, but to torture them and a dozen others. 

Abhaia threw back her head and screamed. 

~ 

In hyperspace, Vader felt a crosscurrent in the Dark side, a ripple of incandescent emotional agony. 

The man he had once been had endured the same pain. Vader thought of it as the pain of raw metal as it was purified and tempered into something finer and stronger. He in turn would take this raw steel woman and forge her into a purposeful weapon instead of the random and erratic thing she was now. 

He stilled his mind and sent out his own wave, seeking the origin of the agony. 

::: Hear me... ::: 

~ 


	6. Symmetry and Imperfection - 5

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 5

~ 

In a corner of the impound lot, a human male watched station security conducting their investigation. 

Humans of many subspecies existed throughout the galaxy, some of them quite striking, but this man was as plain as the gray plassteel of the deck and bulkheads around him. He was not tall, nor was he short enough to be remembered. His build was not excessively slender or bulky, his complexion too fair or too swarthy. In fact, he was such an average human that there was nothing outstanding that the casual passerby might remember about him. 

Getting a little closer, one might notice that he seemed careworn, as if life had been hard to him but not hardened him. Deep lines were etched about eyes that were a warm gold-flecked brown, though the man looked to be only halfway through his fourth decade. His mouth seemed as if it had been made to smile widely and often, but that times had muted his grin into a slight upward tilt of the lips. 

Now the man simply looked haunted, nearly as ashen as his dust-brown hair. 

He turned away from the scene, jaw tight and slipped into a dim service corridor. 

Knight Naum Kogahn felt sick. Someone had killed both men using high-level knowledge of physiology in conjunction with the Force. The thought that a Healer, usually the most gentle and peaceful of Force-users, could betray the calling was a thought that he found horrifying. 

In the past twenty years, he had seen things that robbed him of sleep. In his nightmares, he relived the destruction of the Temple thousands of times, saw the bodies or empty robes of the people who had been his family. In the years since then, those Vader had not killed off split into bitterly divided factions. Some wanted to lie low until the ill winds passed, taking Vader and Palpatine with them. Others wanted to fight fire with fire and burned not only themselves but also everything and everyone they touched. Certain groups had withdrawn into themselves, eschewing all contact, sometimes violently. Naum was quite certain that the woman he was trailing was from one of the latter, and a particularly insular one at that. 

Whoever they were, they were expending a great deal of effort to either bring her back or kill her. He had run into plenty of rogue Jedi, even some Dark Jedi who made Vader look like a blue-eyed innocent, but he had never heard of a Healer going rogue, much less becoming the Darkside rage-storm that her signature proclaimed. 

The station was a labyrinth of corridors, most of them interconnected, and he cut back and forth on his way back to his ship. He had missed her, not by much, maybe just a matter of hours, but the Council would not be pleased. They had teams on the woman's backtrail, trying to see what or whom she was running from. The Council - what was left of it - had tasked him with finding her and if he could not bring her to be healed, he was to neutralize her. 

Naum was so intent on finding her, so familiar with her signature, that he felt the shockwave of anguish as if she had been sitting in the same room with her. Even more stunning, he had felt Vader's response in a wave of ice and flame, calling out to her. 

_Hear me... _

The Sith could be persuasive, though to the woman's credit, such contact had resulted in a surge of panic before she dropped out of Naum's Force-sense completely. 

He came within sight of his lock and paused, rooting through his belt pouch as a cover for a quick survey of the corridor. There was still a bounty of fifty million credits a piece for the apprehension of the surviving Jedi, and plenty of skilled bounty hunters eager to boost both reputations and credit balances. 

All clear. 

The _Illumine_ was an old corvette that had once been in Republic service but had lately been running spice and engaging in piracy around Nar Shaada. Well, at least it had been until it latched on to a ship full of fugitive Jedi. Naum's mouth quirked in that nearly-forgotten grin; he had been offered a lot of money to do some rather astounding - and in some cases, repulsive - things since acquiring this ship. A good many miscreants were now devoting their lives to good works as a result of what the uninitiated called "the Jedi mind-whammy." 

Come to think of it, a good many Jedi called it that, too. 

Once in the lock, he dogged it shut and cleared his account with the station. Aboard his ship, he disengaged completely from the station and headed into the cockpit. 

"Free trader _Illumine_, come in, this is Departure. Free trader _Illumine_, come in." 

Naum answered, "This is free trader _Illumine_, Departure. I require a launch window." 

They would not ask his destination. It was expected that free traders went to the nearest jump point and reoriented anyway. 

"Departure here, we are downloading the coordinates into your cache now. Clear skies to you, trader." 

The navicomp accepted the coordinates as Naum brought the engines online. 

Leaning back in the seat, Naum closed his eyes and relaxed into the Force. 

She's alone, and in terrible pain, so full of rage and grief. With Vader on her trail, she must be scared witless. She was panicking and she's going to head for the first place that looks safe to her. 

All Points station security had established that the ship belonging to the two dead men had made a precipitous departure. The old Kuat light-freighter could go far, but had a limited environmental system. This meant stops had to be made to take on fresh water and to blow the sludge. She'd be able to stay low for two weeks before the water started tasting funny, but she would probably put into port before that. 

He needed to figure out which way his quarry was going to jump before Vader did. If those two highly unstable elements were to interact, the entire galaxy might well be blown to bits by the bang. 

~ 

Sleep. For the first time in weeks... no, for the first time in months Abhaia slept without keeping a part of her consciousness tuned for intruders. 

Her jump from All Points station had been hasty, and it had taken a series of hops to put her in the Meradni system. Ages ago, Meradni's sun had gone unstable, blooming into a red giant and blasting shells of superheated gas into space, ripping away whatever atmospheres existed from her coterie of planets. Abhaia had hidden her ship in a crater on the moon of the seventh planet and indulged herself in a full day of deep, dreamless sleep. 

For now, she feared to allow herself any dreams. Afraid of what she would see in them, she allowed herself only the lightest dreamstate needed to process information. Even that small concession was almost too much. 

In her dreams, Vader was just a darkness on the edge of her peripheral vision, watching her. She dreamed of her Arien, her beloved child. There were dreams of Arien in her grandfather's hands, or dead, or in terrible danger. In all of these, Abhaia could only move as if through air turned to thick syrup, unable to stop what was about to happen. 

And then there was Vader. It was one thing to consider having his attention in the abstract, it was a totally different to be the focus of that attention. 

Opening her eyes, she stared up at the ceiling of the compartment. 

Vader had contacted her with a sure, cold touch that shocked her out of her fracturing emotional state. 

::: Hear me. Hear me, lost one. Tell me where you are, and I will find you. ::: 

Abhaia had slammed up her mental shields and was launching even as Departure downloaded her coordinates. 

Rolling out of bed, she went to the galley, mulling over the things that Vader had not said. Part of being a Healer was empathy, and some of the emotions she had sensed lurking below his communication scared her juiceless. She sensed passion, rage, ambition, ruthlessness, hatred, vengeance, and a deep, fierce loyalty. To cross this man, to betray him, was to invite oblivion. 

She shook her head, as if to clear it. 

_Clarity. Calm. Get too wound up, Abi, and you are a dead woman. _

The galley was well-stocked. She selected a hotpack of cereal with dried fruit and nuts and banged it on the counter to activate it, thawed out a sipper of fruit juice, then carried both forward to the cockpit. Settling into the pilot's chair, she set her meal to one side and pulled up a map of the local systems. This far out, stars were sparse, with a good bit of distance between them. Checking her fuelmass and environmental specs allowed her to estimate the outside of her range. 

Out of an entire galaxy of some one-hundred billion stars, her choices were narrowed to a little less than ten thousand. She further eliminated those under Imperial control, some commander might decide to insure his early retirement by collecting a Jedi bounty; her options dwindled to one thousand. Next, she narrowed the parameters even further: No Hutt, syndicate, or corporate-controlled systems, and a large, transient, and variegated human population. 

Four hundred left. Resorts, trade centers, gateway worlds, and some bounty-worlds. The bounty-worlds were the first to go; she was not going to go through months of adaption, innoculations, and surgery. Resorts had highly effective security measures meant to bring the tourists peace of mind, and she did not want the scrutiny. That left her with trade centers and gateway worlds. 

Both Vader and Grandfather probably had an idea of the limitations she was operating under and were working the data much the same way. All Abhaia had to do was to bring one close while avoiding the other. 

She snorted as she scrolled through her remaining choices; at this point she was dancing with asteroids, one mistake and either or both could smash her to paste. 

Polstinar? Trading center for the Jewel Merchants' Guild with security that could count sandfleas on a Jawa. 

Next. 

Fremmer? Gateway world on the edge of Imperial space. Lots of Interdictor-class ships yanking transports out of hyperspace on a regular basis. 

Next. 

Quinrid? Major trading center for exotic goods coming in from wild space, heavy spynet activity from the Empire, Alliance and other entities. 

Kal Madedo? Known as a smuggler's haven. Everybody minding their own business or looking to steal someone else's. 

Possible. 

Algeda? A major trade center with construction, refineries and a heavily transient, largely human population. Close neighbor of Kal Madedo. 

Bringing the engines online, Abhaia began to plot her jumps with an eye to the capabilities of her scanning array. She had the feeling that she was in for a great many surprises, and wanted to avoid the most lethal of them. 

~ 


	7. Symmetry and Imperfection - 6

Symmetry and Imperfection 

Part 6

~

For Darth Vader, meditation had long ago replaced sleep. Of course, the mind required a break from reality in order to process its experiences, but he had not actually slept in many years. Instead, he watched the Dark for a telltale ripple from his quarry. 

The first contact with her had been intriguing. Despair and bereavement roiled through this woman as much as fear and rage. Something or someone had been taken from her and she was hell bent on revenge, that much he understood from her actions. The amount of power she was drawing from the Dark side was nothing short of amazing. The panic she felt at his contact reached him, as did the experience of having her drop out of his Force-sense like a rock into water. 

Very little impressed him, but that trick did and very much so. She had made herself essentially invisible. With this shielding technique, he could be standing right next to her and never know it.

Unlike Palpatine and Obi-Wan, Vader understood that in some cases the apprentice had much to teach the master. He would like very much to learn this skill.

A minor ripple of fear and unease reached him, something that he might not have felt unless he was actively looking for it.

She locked it down, and dropped back into nothingness. 

No matter. He'd track her down in time. 

There were two more casualties of their own stupidity on All Points station. A corvette had been dispatched from the battle group to intercept Vader's shuttle and bring him there. On seeing the condition of the corpses, it was easy to see why such effort was being expended to bring her back or kill her. A rogue Healer was unheard of, and one so powerful and so dangerous could not be allowed to roam free. It was fortunate that there would be no lack of voids in her training for him to exploit. So many of the would-be Jedi had gaps in basic knowledge that one might easily toss a gas giant through. 

Vader was also certain that there were more than two parties in on the chase, though it was difficult to say since she was so fast on the kill. 

He opened his eyes and turned his attention to an intriguing bit of evidence he had acquired at All Points. Removing the glove from his flesh-and-bone hand, he turned it between his fingers. While his cybernetics were some of the finest available examples of prosthetic art, he preferred to do fine work with this one. Locked-frequency comlinks were not unusual, but the shielding around the core of this particular model was. Back in the days of the Clone Wars, models like this had been used by higher-level Separatist operatives. 

Anakin Skywalker had known how to make the little units give up their secrets. It involved patience and total concentration, but the yield was well worth the investment. 

This one had been stomped on and left half-hidden under an impounded ship on All Points. One of the deceased had sliced into the communications mainframe and boosted the long-range capabilities of the 'link. This left "tracks" on comsats all the way across the galaxy as the signal bounced from node to node, seeking its terminal. 

Now, back aboard the _Triumphant_, he had the equipment that would allow him to unlock part of his quarry's past. He discarded the casing and the shattered remains of the communications circuitry and opened the core, revealing a flawless manufactured diamond encased in gold wire one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair. 

All he needed was the frequency, and a unit like this was made specifically for one frequency. Levitating the wire-wrapped crystal, he attached two leads, allowing them to fall into place as softly as snowflakes. Any superfluous energy or rough handling of the bare core might destroy access to the evidence he wanted. Once the circuit was complete, he sent a low-level electromagnetic charge into the wire jacketing - the diamond began to vibrate and then to sing. 

A grin stretched the scar tissue on his face. If only every question was so easy to answer. 

A presence behind him caused him to turn in annoyance and then stretched his grin even wider. Ensign Garza stood there as wide-eyed as any boy who had just seen a magic trick. From the look of it, he had been so fascinated... 

"You may breathe, Ensign Garza." 

The man sucked a breath and exhaled, "Yes, my Lord. Thank you, my Lord." 

"Conduct a general query of all comsats for traffic on this frequency." 

Ensign Garza looked at Vader is if the Sith Lord had just ordered him to flap his arms and fly around the room. Did the Academy teach these youngsters nothing other than how to polish their boots? 

"My Lord, my instructors at the Academy did not cover that procedure, my Lord." Garza's cadence was gloomy and the entire crew in communications looked as if they might soon be attending a funeral. 

Killing the young officer for ignorance would serve no purpose. Having a short talk with the head of curriculum at the Academy prior to his abrupt retirement and departure for Kessel to take up spice mining would, however, be quite satisfying. 

Vader decided that he would remedy the lack himself, and pointed to a vacant com station. "Sit." 

Some forty-five minutes later, the coordinates and serial numbers for every comsat relay were lighting up in the holoprojector. Each flare of light represented a relay satellite or communications node somewhere in the galaxy. From All Points to Vuka'an to Belkind, to the Morani Prime Communications Node to Anoat; the communication had gone through nearly thirty thousand relays before it terminated in... 

Vader grinned again. 

Garza stared even more wide-eyed at the cluster of navigational hazards that ringed the Illoni star cluster. 

"But that's not possible, Lord Vader! No pilot could..." The Ensign remembered who he was speaking to and shut up so quickly that he nearly chopped off his tongue along with the sentence. 

No, a regular pilot could not make the series of jumps into the heart of Illoni. Only a Force-strong pilot would be able to find and keep to the safe path. Vader downloaded the information into a memory stick, encrypted and pocketed it. He had a bargaining chip, to use when and if he chose. 

~ 

Abhaia sat in the darkened cockpit of the _Maze Dancer_ and reminded herself not to chew her nails. The sensor arrays had been monitoring traffic patterns in the Algeda and Kalini systems. Exiting at a little-used jump point, she had made her way to where she was now; a point equidistant between Algeda and Kal Madedo. 

So far, neither seemed to hold any special hazard for her, nothing to help her decide for one or against the other. 

An idea occurred to her, but she pushed it away. 

"You're acting like a child afraid of the dark, Abi." 

Well, she was afraid of the Dark. She was even afraid of herself. 

"Stop it. Just stop it. Vader is not a boggle lurking under your bed, and Grandfather is not a ghastly hiding in the closet. You have a jump on them and can run if you have to. Now, just do it." The stern voice she often used on a recalcitrant patient did little to quell the shaky feeling in her own stomach and legs. 

Shutting down the sensor array, she leaned back in the pilot's chair and closed her eyes. Abhaia felt the seat against her, the press of clothing on skin, skin on fat, muscle and nerve. Slowly she fell within herself, feeling the function of the body that was the vessel for her spirit. She felt the void that ached for the loss of Arien, the empty places where she could once feel Keille and Isabail's love. Deeper within she went until the calm center of the storm was all around her. 

Then... 

_Without. _

She spread her self wide and soared. 

A part of her wobbled in awe and fear at what lay before her, her empathic sense groaned as billions of entities seemed to babble in her head. She shut them all out and began to look for certain signatures. 

Faintly, she could feel her baby. Arien was playing and happy, and for a moment, Abhaia thought she could feel the child respond to her presence. Abhaia withdrew with a last caress and searched on. 

Some were so distant that they were little more than vague feelings of somewhere-over-that-way-and-up, others were close enough to make her distinctly nervous. It felt like Grandfather had scrambled anyone who could swing a saber out of their bolthole and left everyone else behind. For a moment, Abhaia mulled going back for the women and children and then discarded the idea. Getting out of the Cluster the first time had been a close thing, she would not put helpless people on the line with her. 

She pushed her perception as far as it would go, searching for an indication of... 

... of someone watching her! 

She flashed to a defensive posture even as the presence became aware of her and reached out. 

::: Peace. I will not harm you. ::: 

The mental touch was firm with control, layered with complexities she could not even begin to name, and belonged to no one she knew. 

::: Come to me, child. Come, young one. There is nothing to fear other than the fear inside you. ::: 

Withdrawing in haste, Abhaia was puzzled when the presence seemed to follow her. Maybe it was tracking her? 

::: No! Leave me alone! ::: She flashed a warning tinged with the red of blood. 

::: Sorry, child. I cannot do that. ::: Regret and finality colored the response as the presence seized her and began to peel way her defenses. 

~ 

Naum Koghan broke a sweat as he tried to keep a grip on the wayward one. Force! She was stronger than he thought! 

::: There is too much at risk. ::: He told the writhing thing in his grip. ::: Vader hunts you, for what, I do not know. ::: 

::: For a purpose of my own, Jedi. ::: 

A blast of fury nearly took Naum to the deck of his ship and he felt the Sith take hold of the woman he now knew as Abi. 

_FearfearfearANGERFearHATE...let...me...go! FURY! _

Raw emotion exploded from the woman and she snapped Naum's hold on her as if it was a thread. When his head cleared of the dazzle, he could still sense Vader, but Abi had vanished as if she never existed. 

Naum broke contact and slammed up his shields. His orders regarding Vader were not to engage under any circumstances. Getting to his feet, he moved for the cockpit. He had a general location for Abi, he just had to be faster on the search than Vader. 

~ 

Aboard the _Triumphant_, in his meditation chamber, Darth Vader opened his eyes. 

Abhaia. Her name was Abhaia. Such a gentle-sounding name to attach to a brawling little spitfire; her parting buffet had given him a headache. 

Vader shook his head and rubbed his bare scalp with his fingers. 

Still, her fear was a way to reach her, and to ferret out secrets that she would rather keep; such as her name and her probable destination. 

How convenient that his interests and the interests of the Empire were about to coincide. 

As for the lone Jedi... 

Vader removed the memory stick from his belt pouch and walked it across his fingers. 

_I think that this will be enough to divert his interest. _

~ 


	8. Symmetry and Imperfection - 7

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 7

~ 

Kal Madedo managed to live down to its sordid reputation. 

The smuggler's haven was an otherwise pleasant world. Mild axial and a small moon insured agreeeable weather and gentle tides. The seas were shallow and warm, with green water lapping on sands ranging in color from snowy white to blush pink to glittering black. The buildings were armed forts; everyone went armed and stepped over the bodies in the street. 

Everything that one could imagine - and many things that rational beings would never consider - were sold here as casually as one might by a sandwich and soft drink elsewhere. Information, slaves, drugs, banned technology, anything was available for a price. 

Naum leaned back in his booth at a popular cantina in Truce City and watched the crowds. The shadows cast by the bar's lighting and the hood of his cloak let him remain a shadow to all that cared to look. 

She was here - somewhere - he could feel it, he'd been tracking her for ten days. 

Vader was one system over, beginning the brutal pacification of Algeda. This made everyone on Kal Madedo very nervous, as smuggling 'liberated' goods from Algeda's largesse was the prime mover in the Kalini economy. If the Empire turned its gaze upon Kal Madedo, and what goods wound up in whose hands, things would get very bloody, and very quickly. 

A grimace crossed Naum's face, hidden in the shadows. The groups that formed the Alliance to Restore the Republic were composed of staunch idealists like Bail Organa and some characters whom the Council could not bring themselves to trust. The remnants of the Trade Union, the Banking Clan, the Techno Union and others had gone scuttling for cover the day Palpatine declared himself Emperor and were - to some points of view -hiding in the skirts of the rebellion. 

Even now, years later Naum still could close his eyes and see his beloved Master falling in to the sands of Geonosis, his chest blackened by a droideka laser blast. Later, when the Trade Union shipcores had started falling from the sky, Naum had cheered, ashamed but filled with a vengeful joy. 

Naum reminded himself that a Jedi should have compassion, and that the members of those groups had suffered from a massive backlash, encouraged by Palpatine. Even now, Nemoidians called themselves Duros, hiding themselves from the shame brought to their race by the Trade Union. 

Pushing back from the table, he began to rise. All this rumination in the dives of Truce City was not getting him any closer to his quarry. Abi had not let so much as a ripple escape her shielding since the aborted tug-of-war with Vader. Naum's lips formed into a hard smile, he hoped the Sith's head had hurt as much as his own had afterward. 

_What does he want with her?_

How did the Sith find their apprentices, anyway? One of his old teachers said that the Sith looked for those who felt deeply, passionately. Not so much hate, though that was a part of it, but those for whom passionate dedication to a person or an ideal ruled their lives. Those in tune with the living Force tended to me more susceptible, dwelling as they too often did in the here-and-now, bound up in the moment-to-moment flow of pain, pleasure, love, hate, suffering and joy. Abi fell squarely into that category, but he had yet to discover the root of her single-minded pursuit of vengeance. 

A flutter in the Force, like the brushing wings of a moth brought him to full alert. 

::: Run, Jedi. ::: 

The trace was gone before he could form her name, but was that brief communication a threat? Or had it been a warning? 

As he exited the bar two men in gray shipsuits and mid-calf duster jackets abruptly flanked him. One was tall, his red hair and beard shot through with silver. The other was short, muscular and an earthen-brown from skin to hair. Both about his age, the pair had hardened expressions and eyes as cold as termination orders. 

"You're leaving, brother? Very good idea, we'll see you to your ship." Red-hair kept stride with him easily. 

"Actually, brothers, I was just about to try another cantina." Naum kept his voice calm, but he could feel threat emanating from the two. If they were not looking for Abi, he would kiss Vader's boots. 

Red-hair jumped in front of him, blocking Naum's way. "That might be unhealthy, brother. She's not the kind of company you would want to keep, and some very nasty types are interested in her. Much better to let us take her home to her kin, and private matters can stay private." 

The stocky one opened his gray duster to reveal his lightsaber and said, "The kind of interest she's attracting is unhealthy for all of us, let family matters stay within the family." 

Naum laughed, "And here I thought laying a trail of bodies across the Out-Fars was Abi trying to get shut of her family!" Then the laughter cut off. "Whatever you have done has driven a Healer to not only kill, but so far into the Dark that Vader can not only sense her, but he can touch her at will. Remove yourself from my way." 

It was nothing unusual for duels to be fought in the streets of the city, but a duel using lightsabers would pull a great deal of unwanted notice. Surely, these two fools realized that? 

The tension stretched until Naum could almost hear the snap-hiss of igniting sabers. 

Stocky One cocked his head as if listening to something only he could hear and nodded at Red-hair. 

"We have other business, brother," Stocky One spat out the last word as he might a piece of rotten meat. "I would advise you to take your search in another direction. We would deeply regret the necessity of your death should you choose your way unwisely." 

Naum watched as the two vanished into an alley and hurried to a parallel street. He knew by the dead, blank eyes of both men that they would regret little, if anything, and never killing any whom stood in their way. 

~ 


	9. Symmetry and Imperfection - 8

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 8

~ 

Jilla's Tap and Table was one of the larger cafes on Kal Madedo and easily the most popular. 

The food was fresh, the drinks came with a tamper-evident seal, and the entire staff was composed of former military. Even the dancers were rumored to be ex-snipers; if there were going to be a brawl, they would be more likely to shoot the instigators than the bystanders and look good doing it. The tables were placed so that the clients had privacy, but mirrors all around the room assured that no one could sneak up on those who might have a touch of justifiable paranoia. Even the music was designed to take advantage of the room's special acoustic design; no occupant of the club could hear another's conversation unless they were within a meter of each other. 

Privacy was a prime offering of Jilla's, so the tables and bar were full at all hours. 

This early in the evening, the decoratively pierced metal shutters were open to catch the soft ocean breezes. The clients were less raucous, more interested in dinner and their disparate discussions than in the games of chance or pursuit of dancers. 

Abhaia stepped through the scan port at the main entrance and nodded to the bouncer. Heading to a small table in a corner of the establishment, she surreptitiously scanned the occupants of the room. This had become her table; it had a view of the entrance and two clear escape routes. She knew she was being hunted by a minimum of three parties and wanted none of them to surprise her. 

A soft laugh escaped her. If Vader so much as put his nose in-system, the occupants of this room would leave so fast that they would take the oxygen with them. 

There were some men of her grandfather's here, she'd seen or sensed five of them, but they had missed her. Lio P'ledni and Orin Zarath were two she remembered quite well. It seemed that a certain percentage of the injuries in her infirmary back home were usually attributable to their actions. They were dangerous, even to other warriors. 

_Is that why you warned him, then? _

Abhaia dismissed the internal question with an uneasy shift of her shoulders. 

The "Other" she had encountered in her Force meditation was here. He was a Jedi, possibly a real one, not one like Grandfather's men. Like the ones that her mother used to tell her about in whispered bedtime stories, like the one grandmother Isabail had been. 

This Other was a snag to her plans. Abhaia had no idea whose interest he represented, what he wanted with her, or if he wanted her alive or dead. By all rights, she should have let Lio and Orin spit him and good riddance. 

But she hadn't. 

She had risked revealing herself not only to this other, but to Grandfather and his toadies and to Vader as well. The most frightening part of it was that she could not explain why she had done so. 

The waiter, a broad-shouldered man with a much-broken nose and quick brown eyes, came to her side. "M'lady?" he gruffed. 

"The mixed green salad with grilled kiku breast and vinaigrette, a round of whole-grain bread with allic spread and a glass of Gorani green tea, iced, please." 

The man grunted another "m'lady" at her and stomped off as if serving such girly food was an affront to his dignity. Rumor had it that the waiters were all former sergeants of the Imperial officer's mess. After hearing one cursing a blue streak at the kitchen staff, Abhaia was prepared to believe it. 

Relaxing into the deep, armor-backed chair, Abhaia again surveyed the room, using the mirrors to study every possible angle. For a moment, she studied the room's strangest occupant - herself. Perhaps the reason grandfather's men had missed her was the simple fact that she looked so very different now. Drab little Abi the Healer was nowhere in evidence. Instead, an exotic scarlet-clad woman stood - or sat, Abhaia thought with a smile - in her place. 

Her knee-high boots, cloak, leggings, and tunic were the true, bright red of arterial blood and embroidered with a subtle design in a darker red. Even her visible weaponry was meant to draw the eye, a well-worn blaster rode in a holster on her right thigh and a pair of onyx-hilted dueler's vibroblades stuck out of her boots. With her braid shorn away, Abhaia's straight black hair was shorter in back and longer in front, while black kohl made her blue eyes stand out even more intensely. 

Even her own grandfather might not recognize her if she sat down next to him. 

The waiter brought her meal and drink, his temper somewhat mollified by the substantial tip she gave him. Abhaia had developed a taste for gambling, especially sabaac and other card games. The subtle clues of body language were all she needed to win tidy amounts at nearly every game she staked into. Sure, she could use the Force to weight dice or make wheels stop where she wanted them to, but with cards, there was always the chance that she could be wrong about the tilt of a head or the twitch of a finger. It was a tame little thrill. 

Eating quickly, she mulled over her option for the evening. She would not be ready for Vader to become involved until a substantial balance of Grandfather's forces was in place. Five were here, with another forty-odd inbound from various locations where they had been searching for her. Grandfather was holding just outside the gas giants in the outer vacuum of the Kalini system; he never went into a fight unless he was certain that he could win. In the end, she would take the fight to him. 

A shiver radiated outward from her bones and she pushed the remains of her meal away. 

Vader. 

Abhaia had just thought to use Dark to fight Dark, but the Sith Lord wanted something from her. Just what that something was, she both wanted and feared to find out. 

Again she locked down her feelings; he could find her, could touch her that way. For now, she decided to lose herself in a game, it would take all of her concentration to monitor her fellow player's reactions. That would keep her composed and invisible. 

A patron entered the bar, and peered around in the dim light, doing a marked double take at Abhaia before making a tentative approach. Abhaia stood, one hand resting casually on the grip of her blaster as the figure stepped timidly out of the shadows. 

"A-Abi? Is that really you? You look like a holoseries heroine!" The blue-gray swathed figure swept back the hood of the tunic to reveal short golden hair and cloud-gray eyes in a heart-shaped face. "Oh, Force, Abi! It is you, isn't it?" 

"Neve!" Abhaia cut off the words with a hug so fierce that she felt her friend's ribs creak. Neve hugged back nearly as hard, crying and laughing at the same time. 

After a short time, Abhaia pushed Neve back and wiped tears from her own face. "What's happening back there, Neve? Did you escape, too? How did you find me?" Neve's sad smile brought Abhaia's joy crashing down. 

"They're afraid, Abi. There have been small scout ships poking around. Vader is supposed to be out looking for you. When you escaped, they lost something, Abi, and you know how they hate to lose." Neve sat slowly, twisting her fingers. "People are trying to escape. Most don't make it, but thanks to you, they have the steel to try now." 

Abhaia did not so much sit in her chair as fall into it. People were trying to emulate her? And they were dying for mistaking her act of cowardice for an example of bravery? 

Distraught, Abhaia got to her feet, nearly ready to go find one of her pursuers and turn herself in, but was stopped by Neve's shackle-like grip on her wrist. Abhaia and Neve had been crechè-mates, they had known each other all their lives. They had seen each other through the tragedies and small triumphs that characterized life in the women's quarters. When Abhaia had been raped and later determined that she was pregnant, Neve had held her and rocked her as one would a child. Neve was a Healer of a different sort; Neve healed the deepest wounds of the heart. 

"Listen to me, Abi. This is what they want you to do. They know you're an empath, and they are playing on that." Neve shook the captive arm. "Think! They want you to hurt because they know that you won't think straight! You won't be able to think until the hurting stops!" 

"But...!" Abhaia scrambled for an argument. She should have gone back. She could have tried to sneak Neve out with her. Should have... 

"Abi, did you have your baby?" Neve had been party to Abhaia's decision not to terminate, not judging any side of the argument, just letting her friend know that she would still be loved whatever was decided. 

A smile of regret and love crossed Abhaia's face, and she nodded. "I named her Arien. She was... is... beautiful, Neve." 

"And she's free, isn't she? Somewhere that she can grow up safe and healthy, strong and loved?" 

"Yes." The word was a fervent prayer. 

"If you give in, they will torture you. You will eventually tell them what they want to know. Then they will kill you and they will find your Arien." Neve's voice was cold with anger. "You will be dead and that precious little one you fought for will be a breeding slave to a malignant old man." 

Abhaia's head snapped up at the vision of her child in Perran Jasc's control; rage swirled and set a cold fire in her marrow. 

Neve forestalled any response, rushing the words out of her mouth. "Don't go back. Keep fighting or die losing. They took every one of the ships off world, and every last so-called warrior. Do what you have to so that none of those _krechti_ make it back." 

Tears were filling Neve's eyes and her grip was cutting off circulation to Abhaia's hands. Abhaia felt something wrong, shrilling an alarm deep in her Healer's senses. 

"My time is short, Abi. Shorter than I ever imagined. Just know this, take this with you: Lightsider or Darksider, you are loved. I love you. I will love you until time stops and memory dies. You are my Abi, my friend, part of my heart for always. I was never, ever angry that you left. I love you. I..." Neve leaped up, one hand clawing at her chest as she spun and stumbled away from the table. 

Abhaia caught her friend and eased her to the ground. Vaguely, she could hear a bouncer calling for a medunit and put a bounce on it, dammit! Slipping into empathic trance, she felt traced the pain to a small device in Neve's chest, right on top of the aorta. It was heating, getting ready to... 

"I'm sorry, Abi..." 

Screaming, searing pain roared through Abhaia's link to Neve, followed by a sense of freedom and peace before the fire that was Neve went out. 

Abhaia knelt by her friend's empty husk, lifting and cradling the body tenderly. With her fingers, she closed the blank gray eyes, cherishing every memory of Neve, locking them away in her heart. Removing her red cloak, she spread it over her friend, ignoring the thicket of legs that surrounded them. She rained tender kisses and tears on her cheeks, lips, eyelids, and chin before covering the now blank face. At least her friend's expression showed only death's peace. 

Neve was not there anymore. 

Abhaia stood, arms crossed over her chest, head down, her breathing deep and even. She felt the sliding away of another presence, shying from contact, fear and a sneaking pleasure coloring it. Without moving or change in her breathing, Abhaia struck. 

She slowly raised her head and those who had circled her went stumbling back as if hit by a moving wall, all but for the one sweating, terrified man who stood as if rooted to the floor. 

The rage-storm broke inside her. 

~ 


	10. Symmetry and Imperfection - 9

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 9

~ 

Vader stared out into what men of an earlier time might have taken for Hell. The Algeda system was filled with mobile refineries and smelting platforms venting superheated gasses into hard vacuum. The turbulent gas giants, rich in ammonia, hydrogen, methane and rarer gasses reflected a sickly light. Massive rings of flying rocks, all that remained of Algeda's other six planets after being caught in conflicting gravity wells, collided with flashes of amazing brightness as their kinetic energy was released. Even the light from the primary was the livid, unhealthy red of a dying star. 

Certainly for the rebel elements, Algeda now fit the classical definition of Hell. Pacification was well underway on the industrial platforms and in the belts, with resistance being worn away and rebellious conspirators being uncovered in every sweep. Each round of interrogation brought fresh information to light, and though time consuming, Vader found such activity deeply rewarding. It had taken much work to refine the Empire's interrogation techniques to separate sterling truth from brass-bound lies, but the success rate had greatly improved. 

Vader had his own methods that meshed very effectively with the standard psych and neurotech to extract what he wanted from his subjects. 

He turned back to the troopers flanking one such subject. The man knelt on the deck, head bowed and shaking. Ostensibly a rockhound with the appropriate brawler's face and sunken knuckles, Vader had picked him out of a lineup of prisoners for only one reason. 

His ID claimed him to be Gress Joolan, human unadapted type 4 from Bespin in the Anoat System, an asteroid miner and cargo loader of ten years experience. Vader had simply noted that the man had all of his fingers, something unusual for anyone who spent more than a year or two in either occupation, and waved him out of line. Basic prisoner intake procedure established that anti-interrogation measures had been hypnotically implanted in the man's mind. Vader was determined to find out by whom. 

Some time in an isolation tank under the influence of heavy psychotropics and hallucinogens had softened the barriers in the rebel's mind considerably. 

"Again," Vader prompted. Thus far, the man had told the same story twice, using different words each time. Some operatives were of such strong self-will that they could memorize and hold a story against the most trying of circumstances, forcing them to tell the same story differently each time made it less likely that they could maintain the fabric of the lie. 

"The... rebels pay me for each load of raw or processed metals and minerals I can skim. I make up the mass with ballast so the container weighs the same." The man's voice was soft, the words slightly slurred. "When I have enough stash, I call in for a pick-up on an outbound drone string from Beggalo Corporation. The string drops out of hyperspace a short way out from Algeda and the load is pulled. My pay comes in from a Beggalo account on Kal Madedo." 

Beggalo was a Chandrilan corporation that ran droid-piloted drones all over Imperial space, Vader was unaware that they had any interests in the Outer Rim, much less on smuggler's pits like Kal Madedo. 

"Who recruited you?" 

"A rep from Madedo. Worked as a free-lancer, but I've seen him mingling with the big shots." The man broke a sweat as he ground out each word, this was pushing against the conditioning the subject had undergone upon recruitment. The consequences for breaking such conditioning ranged from painful to fatal. 

"Name?" 

The simple question caused the man to pant and stutter, his neck cording with the strain. His eyes rolled desperately, looking anywhere but at Vader. 

"I find that your concentration is less focused than it should be." Vader raised his hand, tightened it into a fist, and the thick flesh of the prisoner's neck indented as if being constricted by a garrote. The guards shifted their feet minutely, edging away from a display of something they had been told could not and did not exist. 

Vader watched with a clinical detachment as the man went through the stages of oxygen starvation, releasing his grip just before actual unconsciousness. In those few seconds after the subject got his first breath no amount of conditioning could keep him from insuring that he would have another one coming. 

"Jik Haora! His name's Jik Haora!" The man lay on the floor, wet-eyed and sucking air in great gulps. 

Vader continued with like methods until Gress Joolan had firm comprehension of the fact that a continuing flow of information assured a continuing of Gress Joolan. Vader then dismissed the guards with orders to permit the prisoner to have a cell with light; a novice Interrogator could handle the prisoner easily now. 

Vader thought that either the rebel intelligence apparatus was getting slipshod with induction techniques, or that he had been doing this far too often for far too long. 

The Dark side eddied violently, then settled to an ominous, glassy calm. Abhaia's presence was there in an instant, in the center of the disturbance, her presence echoing the eerie stillness. 

The stillness and the hollow feeling that went with it were familiar to him. Once, many years ago, a young man knelt in a stifling, stinking hut with an emptiness inside him that was so vast that it might swallow planets. Searing pain and grief only fed the void; making it darker, deeper, and larger. 

Now Abhaia was the empty vessel, soon to be filled from a dark well of rage. 

_So it begins._

The wisps of the approaching firestorm brushed his perception and for a moment, just for the least part of a second, part of him that he thought long buried cried out in protest and horror. He squashed the dead man's voice ruthlessly as he headed for his chambers, wondering what moved the dead to speak. 

~ 


	11. Symmetry and Imperfection - 10

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 10

~ 

The feeling of absolute clarity was startling. The colors, scents, and sounds of Jilla's Tap and Table swirled around the deep stillness within Abhaia and vanished into its event horizon. Something within her cried out in horror and grief, then in loss and rage. 

Patrons who had been knocked off their feet were moving for the door, vanishing into the falling night, fleeing the woman with eyes as blue and cold as the deepest glacier ice. There were whispers of "Jedi" and "Sith," made only once far from the Tap and even then with a hasty look over the shoulder. 

Within the now emptied bar, Abhaia held her prisoner in place by refusing to let his legs receive the nerve impulses from his brain. 

He was broad-shouldered, heroically muscular, and tall enough that Abhaia could walk under his outstretched arm with out disordering a hair on her head. Right now, he was sweating, literally stinking of fear as she closed the scant distance between them. 

"It's not a good idea to resist me, so you might as well quit. Melenk and Karris didn't come out of it too well, if you've not heard already." She cocked her head to one side and looked up at him with eyes and cheeks red from crying, " I know you. Uthor, is it?" 

He made no answer. 

"I seem to remember you as an instigator, never an initiator. Someone who always slipped away when things got rough." Abhaia's lips skinned back from her teeth in something that was not a smile, but a predator preparing to bite. 

Stepping back, she raked him with her eyes, noting his left hand clenched hard enough to whiten the knuckles. Extending a tendril of the Force, she jolted the nerves in the arm, compelling the hand to open. 

Something the size of a comlink dropped to the floor. Abhaia called it to her hand and studied it. "A remote control. Now you have become such cowards that you cannot kill face to face?" 

Uthor swallowed audibly at the heat in her voice. "She didn't say what she was told to say, she'd be breathing now if she had." 

Abhaia's eyes flashed, her face tightening with fury. "Do I look like a fool?" she spat. "Or do you just think that after a lifetime of lies that I can't see truth when it runs up and bites me? You don't put an detonator in a person who you intend to keep alive past a certain point." 

"Your grandfather ordered...." 

"Killing Neve was intended to hurt me. She was to deliver your message, then be killed just to make the point of how powerful you are!" Rage was filling her voice, lowering it until it was a musical growl. "Just to let me know that you can do what you wish, when you wish, as if I never had to clean up the aftermath of your arrogance!" 

The last word was shouted an inch from the tip of Uthor's nose. 

"Abi... Healer," Uthor licked the sweat from his upper lip, his voice as smooth as warm oil. "I... see now that this has been mishandled. I can go to Perran, tell him how powerful you are..." 

Abhaia cut of the unctuous flow with a flip of her hand that slammed his jaw shut and shattered a molar. 

"Mishandled? The entire bloody delusion of Perran Jasc was mishandled the day that he came to Lu'xiri and talked my parents into going with him to Illoni! He stole my father's mind, killed my family and now, now you think things might have been flaming mishandled!" Fury roared within her now, burning up the last shreds of reason and restraint, consuming everything and leaving only the molten desire to inflict the pain that had been visited upon her. 

_But you were the one who committed patricide, Abi. Nobody made you swing that blade._

Something dark filled her, augmenting her powers, and when she looked at her captive again her eyes were onyx black. 

Uthor's body seemed to compress, muscles jumping in galvanic spasms. In time, the movements were powerful enough to snap him back and forth like a whip. Mouth open in a silent scream, the only sound that came from him was the sound of breaking bones. 

"How does it feel? You can't stop me, reason with me, bribe me, or even plead with me. Did Neve plead with you? Beg you not to put that thing in her chest? Did she beg for her life?" Tears were running down Abhaia's face, emotions roaring like an avalanche through her body and soul. "Do you like being helpless? Do you like the fear, and the pain? Or do you hate me as much as I hate you and just wish that the hurt would stop?" 

The seizures racking Uthor's body stopped and Abhaia regarded him for a moment, reading his emotions. 

"Wish granted." 

Uthor's head twisted sharply. There was a muted double popping sound and his head and neck moved in a boneless roll. Slowly, his muscles lost memory of life and he slumped to the floor. 

Abhaia stood for a moment, then slowly collapsed to her knees, so drained that she felt a strong breeze might blow her away like the ashes of a spent fire. The clear blue of her eyes emerged from the overwhelming blackness and she seemed to sag on her very bones, as if the cost of the power she wielded was too much for her body to bear for long. 

She did not know how long she sat there before a subtle alteration in the breeze blowing through the windows of the now empty café, made her open her eyes. A man in a hooded robe stood there and the signature of the Other encountered in her mediation filled her Force-sense. He went to his knees, pulling back his hood, revealing warm golden-brown eyes that regarded her with horror and pity, even as he held out his hand to her. 

When he spoke, his voice was so etched with compassion that she nearly lurched to her feet and ran. "Abi. Oh, child, I am so terribly sorry..." 

~ 


	12. Symmetry and Imperfection - 11

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 11

~ 

_Fear leads to anger. _

_Anger leads to pain. _

_Pain leads to suffering. _

_And all lead to the Dark side._

So Naum Kogan had been taught all of his life and so he firmly believed. This had been a part of the Jedi teachings for tens of thousands of years, but kneeling before a child who had been all but born into darkness, the words were pitiful and inadequate. Even the horror of what he had witnessed paled in comparison to the pain and grief that were eating her alive. 

_Is this how we lost Anakin Skywalker?_

Naum had been heading here when the pain screamed out at him with such strength that it knocked him to his knees. Abi's signature was all through the onslaught, spurring him to stagger to his feet and run like demonspawn were chasing him. 

Abi scuttled back from his touch, regarding him with suspicion and fear. Somehow, that hurt him more than anything she could have done. What were the Jedi to her if she could mistrust him so deeply? As it was, Naum counted himself lucky that she had not drawn her blade. 

"What do you want?" Her voice was raw, worn from emotion. All he sensed from her was a terrible, yawning emptiness and the desire to simply make an end. 

He layered his voice with all the calm and compassion that he could muster. "I want to help you. That's all, Abi." 

"Why?" 

He did want to help her. Every Jedi death brought the order closer to extinction. At the close of the Clone Wars, the Jedi had been at slightly more than half of their pre-war strength. In the ensuing Reunification, the Jedi lost even more precious lives. After the destruction of the Temple and the ensuing purges, the Jedi - Masters, Knights, Padawans, even the healers and farmers were estimated to number less than three thousand. 

He weighed his words carefully, judging them against how she might hear them. "Because after all that I heard, after all that you have endured, to lose you to the Dark is more than I could stand. I want to take you before the Council..." he saw her stiffen and draw away, "...so that you can tell them what has happened. So that they can authorize action." 

Surely the Council would act. These men who pursued Abi defiled the very concept of the Jedi of protectors of the people and guardians of peace and freedom. 

Perhaps, free of them and the pain they had caused her, she might be redeemed. Thousands of years ago, the Jedi Master Niani Maenad had said that no spirit who remembered the Light could be truly lost to Darkness, that even a memory of love or care could spark and rekindle the Light within. Master Maenad was one who would have known; before her redemption, she had been a Darkside enchantress of amazing power. 

For a moment the cold mask of suspicion dropped from Abi's face, leaving her looking too tired, too heartbroken and far too young. 

"Do you think they will act? Really?" A glimmer of hope warmed her voice even as the next words broke under her grief. "There are so many..." She folded in on herself, reaching out a delicately-boned hand to touch a body wrapped in the crimson the she herself wore. 

"They have to." Didn't they? He dismissed the question. It was not the place of a Knight to question what the Council might or might not do. 

He stood carefully, watching as she pulled herself away from the body, and began to compose herself. It was a thin skim of calm over a fault zone of emotional turmoil, but it was a heroic effort nonetheless. 

"I can't leave Neve like this." She met his gaze, challenging him, but to what he did not know. 

"We can make arrangements for cremation of her body," Naum soothed while at the same time reminding her that the soul of her friend had become one with the Force. "We have time, I think, for that. What about the ... other one?" 

Those blue eyes hardened in an instant. "Leave him to rot and if I believed in a Hell, I'd wish him to roast in it." 

"It won't harm him, Abi, the anger you carry can only harm you," he said gently. "I saw how that use of the Dark side drained you. You were literally too exhausted to move." 

Abi reared back like a scarlet serpent getting ready to strike and then subsided, listening to some internal alert. A harsh expression settled on her features as she looked at Naum. "We're about to have company, Jedi." 

"Peace Keepers?" Naum had seen what passed for law enforcement here; he thought that the Peace Keepers ought to just call themselves Bureau for the Armed Collection of Hefty Bribes. 

"Those aren't anything I'd worry about." Abi snorted and shook her head. An odd movement of her right hand sent a lightsaber into her grip, its clear green blade standing out in the dimness. "The Keepers couldn't find their own butts with both hands and a landing beacon if it weren't for the distended condition of their wallets." 

Naum's own saber was in his hand, the snap-hiss of the blue blade's ignition triggering a thousand memories. "Is it Vader?" 

If it was Vader, Naum resolved to knock her out and haul her away from here. Her reply sent a chill down his spine. 

"No. Vader is... near, but not that near. He's listening, though. He..." Abi trailed off, eyes unfocusing and then refocusing sharply. The next breath brought words in a frightened cadence. "He knows where I am." 

Naum reached out and took Abi's arm, or tried to. She stepped back and brought her saber into guard position. "Abi, I'm not going to hurt you, but believe me, whatever Vader wants _will_ hurt you and possibly a great many more people." 

"As long as it hurts the right ones," she snapped and started for one of the balconies overlooking the black sanded beach. Though this was the street level, Jilla's had been built into steep a beachside cliff. 

Stunned, he followed her, reminding himself that only the Force knew what she had endured. "Abi, you can't mean that, not truly, and... what in the seven blue hells of Ignib do you think you're going?" 

Abi plunged her saber into the panel that maintained a Nordicon shielding unit, meant for the safety of patrons who chose to dine in the open, then straddled the ornately molded plascrete railing. 

"I'm going out the window." She spoke to him as one might to someone of exceptionally limited faculties. 

Naum's jaw tightened at her tone. "I. See. That. What I wanted to know is why." 

"Because the company we are about to have is my grandfather's men." Her voice carried an edge of fear and anger as she clipped her saber carefully to her belt. "Are you coming or not, Jedi?" 

"Two men? We can handle that without drawing attention, Abi. Just drawing a lightsaber is enough to make some people think about collecting a bounty for a dead Jedi." Naum looked at the five-story drop from the balcony, those rocks were volcanic glass. A flicker of scarlet made him look at Abi and then duck as a pair of dueler's blades sliced the air to either side of his head. 

A sigh, gurgle, and a pair of mortal thuds made Naum turn and stare in shock. Red-hair and Stocky lay on the floor, one with the hilt of a blade protruding from an eye socket, its twin buried in Red-hair's throat. He hadn't even sensed them. 

"Three more less than a block away, a dozen more within minutes of landing." Abi called the blades back and wiped them on a banner before returning them to her boot-sheathes. "How good are you, Jedi?" 

_I'm no Mace Windu, that's for sure._

Naum dropped his robe to the ground and deactivated his saber. Swinging his legs over the railing, he pointed to a patch of sand. "I'll teach you how to do a controlled fall. It's not a true levitation, but it will keep us from being cut to strips by the obsidian." 

Abi took his hand, her face intent. "Show me." 

Naum marveled at the power he could feel in her, Light and Dark, each driving the other in a way that he had never felt before. 

"On three, Abi. One. Two..." 

~ 


	13. Symmetry and Imperfection - 12

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 12

~

It was a failing of power that the more one needed to accomplish, the more obstacles presented themselves. If it was not politics, it was skullduggery – though to Vader one meant the other. If not skullduggery, then incompetence. If not incompetence, then it seemed that Fate would find a way of sticking in a fickle finger where you wanted it the least. 

A potential apprentice was out there and running riot, if he had read the emanations correctly before she dropped out of his perception. He however found himself up to his ears in politics – and naturally, more double-dealing, lies and underhanded tricks than he had patience for. 

All the same, one situation had to be remedied before he could move on to the next. Patience however much accounted a virtue by Jedi and Sith, was never his strong suit. 

Moff Eirad was not a politician; he had been one of the most vocal reform advocates in the old Republic, an influential professor of galactic history, but had never been a politician or a businessman. He had, however been a staunchly outspoken supporter of the New Order. His students, some of them from the most powerful and prominent houses, had followed their teacher and in turn influenced their families. 

The position of Moff had been a reward for faithful service, intended to be a peaceful retirement in a backwater sector. The scholar had no idea that he had been kept in the dark by a few trusted, highly ranked, and overly greedy staff members. They had been most efficient in lining their pockets with bribes from shipping consortiums and trade officials; not to mention smugglers, syndicate bosses, and rebel sympathizers. 

Moff Eirad surprised Vader by being pragmatic about the whole thing, asking if Vader had extracted the information he required, and if they had implicated any other members of his staff. Vader assured the elderly man that all that could be extracted had been and that in every case, and that it had been avarice, not espionage that had motivated the criminals. 

Vader stood in the cluttered office as the Moff digested the news. The seemingly frail old man was a Yinari, bald and golden skinned, and as tough as old roots. 

"Hmph. I would ask that their pensions be spared to provide for whatever dependents they may have left, by your mercy, my Lord." The frail elder began to rummage through a pile of storage media that littered his desk. "It would be contrary to the ambitions of the New Order if we deprive the younger generation of sustenance and instead feed the rebel ranks with fresh bodies and minds." 

"It would be unfortunate, indeed. Some provisions will be made for the education of their dependents as well." The academy on Carida for the boys, the espionage schools on Livraiti for the girls; females were simply so much better at intelligence work. 

"Most charitable, Lord Vader." Eirad's search became a little more intense, lifting one pile of this and stacking it on that. "Now, blast it to smoking Nimdal knew where everything was around here; of course, he had reason to, the treasonous little... Not to tax you, but might you spare me some likely lads to fill the vacancies on my staff? I fear that I never looked beyond the assurances of my senior staff that all was well. I apologize for my ignorant error, my Lord." 

Eirad was solemn, with the look of one prepared to die. Vader, however, did not fault an academic for thinking like an academic instead of a general. "Your error was made in good faith, Moff Eirad. I will send you a list of qualified candidates." 

Eirad nodded, still intent on finding something in the information pile. "And perhaps a likely lass or two? I'm partial to those talented lovelies from Livraiti, I admit." 

"They do have special qualities, Master Academician. I will see to the dispatch of one." A qualified spymaster was hard to come by, but if even a rather dreamy individual like Eirad saw the need, it was better to have one in place with his good wishes. 

The Moff finally found what he had been so urgently searching for. Dropping the memfile into his reader, his murmur of satisfaction tuned into a slew of archaic yet impressive curses as his private com gave an obnoxious blat. 

"By the brazen, bloody, banging balls of Koschei!" Eirad thundered as he slapped the link open. "What the fark do you want, you damned pirate? Looking for a return on the unused portions of bribes? You muck-sucking" 

Vader listened, impressed. The genteel and learned professor must have done a tour in the Old Republic Navy; his rhetoric could boil lead. 

The recipient of the tirade was a startled-looking, bloated human. Dressed in what might well have started out as an ornamental carpet, liberally adorned with gold braid, and topped of with a hat that belonged in a comic opera, he looked the part of a provincial official with the requisite delusions of grandeur. 

"I had nothing to do with it, and in any case I'm not calling about that, you wheezing old fart!" The man appeared not only startled, but also frightened out of his wits. "I have Jedi rioting and murdering in the streets! My Peace Keepers have locked themselves in the stationhouses and refuse to come out! We're losing trade!" 

Jedi rioting in the streets?

Eirad looked at Vader, cocking an eyebrow. Vader made a flat gesture with one hand and tapped the side of his head, indicating that he would listen. 

"I'm telling you, Eirad! Hundreds of Jedi waving lightsabers and hacking each other and half of Truce City to bits! More are landing as I speak!" 

"Oh, calm down, Governor Wellan. I doubt if there's enough left of the Jedi to muster three Padawans and a farmer into the field. Besides, Jedi to not hack each other to bits." Eirad's manner was abstracted as he scanned the memfile and began to highlight certain documents. 

"Then explain this! Pull your head out of the dust and tell me that this is three whatchamons and a farmer!" The comic-opera governor was replaced by a very clear holo of three large males in pursuit of a medium-sized male and a small female; all parties involved had drawn blades. The male and female turned back to back as the large males circled. The small female lunged, tucked and rolled, coming up between the legs of one of the predator males and 

Eirad winced. Vader shifted position almost unconsciously. There were things that no male could watch without some discomfort and that certainly was one of them. 

The medium-sized man appeared to be scolding the woman while attempting to fend off the two remaining males. The woman, by way of response, shrugged and decapitated her injured opponent. 

Vader thought that he really was going to have to teach her not to be so fast on the kill. 

The man let loose with a flurry of jabs and flourishes, then raised his left hand. The two larger men went flying backwards like flung toys. One struck a wall and slid down it to rest on his rump. The other was carried almost out of the frame, falling to the ground and springing back to his feet in one smooth motion. 

The screen was then filled with flying debris, whirling back and forth between the opponents. All concerned exhibited creditable saber work, fending off the larger of the missiles and turning some back on their senders. A large, metal shutter joined the debris and halved one large male opponent on the diagonal from shoulder to hip. The survivor, seeming to have a tiny shred of self-preservation, fled the field as fast as his legs would take him. 

The woman, now clearly visible, was hardly old enough to be called such. Vader estimated her age to be a mere eighteen or nineteen years. From the brief touches of his mind upon hers, he had guessed she was somewhat older. Small, slender and striking, she radiated an intensity with each move and breath. Abhaia was a woman with a mission. 

The man with her must be the Jedi he had sensed. Vader studied him as well; noting that the man was so absolutely human-average that he might well walk about with a holoboard that spelled out "SPY." He was the type that the Jedi spymasters always recruited because they could disappear not only physically, but also by mimicking the people around them. 

The Moff exchanged his astonishment for a jaded look just as Wellan's image returned. "Hmph. I'd hardly call that a riot, Wellan. A farmer and a chit of a girl, Jedi or not. Now, what the hell do you want from me? I'm up to my ass in the mess you've helped to make of my staff. Do you know how bloody hard it is to get literate help these days?" 

"I need help. There's more of them than that." The fat man licked his lips, eyes darting nervously. "One walked right into my office, did some kind of Jedi mind trick and made my assistant jump out the window. Told me that if my militia did not cooperate, I'd be joining him. I have bounty hunters gone mad chasing the Jedi and shooting everything in sight. I've lost enough entry tariffs in one day I need intervention." 

An upshot eyebrow conveyed Eirad's disdain while at the same time he signaled Vader to wait. "The Empire has no time for the petty disputes in that pit of iniquity that you claim to govern, Wellan." 

Wellan licked his lips again, a habit Vader was starting to find most irritating. "I might offer some concessions for your intervention," Wellan offered. "Some names, maybe some whereabouts of some criminal elements, who might work for what interests." 

Eirad turned his head to one side, as if pondering this offer, and winked at Vader. "I believe then, Governor Wellan, that I am truly out of my depth. I am neither a soldier, nor am I an Inquisitor. Eirad's voice became ponderous, but Vader saw the predatory gleam in his eye. 

This was turning into a fine show, and the old man had a sharp instinct for a tottering power structure. It was his widely read essays on order and justice that had called millions to the cause of order and Empire and incited massive demonstrations against the special interests that had poisoned the Republic. Vader leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, fascinated. The man was no general, but he was a warrior indeed, and a worthy one. 

Wellan offered anything in his power, and quite a few things that probably were not, for a Destroyer and troops. Eirad let him babble while assiduously filling out and printing a batch of forms, stamping him with his seal of office, then tucking them neatly into a black folder. 

"Are you listening to me?" The now sweat drenched incompetent wailed. "Damn you to the coldest hell on Hoth!" 

Eirad managed a befuddled look. "Oh, you're still here? Still on about those pesty Jedi? I told you, Wellan, I'm not qualified to go chasing after them. Not with all the reorganizing, I have to do here. But ah!" A sly smile rearranged the wrinkles of Eirad's face. "My Lord! I have the death warrants all signed and ready for your approval. Spacing a bunch of thieves and traitors houldn't take this much paperwork, should it?" 

Vader stepped into pickup range and took the proffered folder without comment. Wellan went from apoplectic to snow white to a sickly gray-green in a matter of breaths. 

Eirad now reminded him of a felinid playing with its soon-to-be meal. "My Lord Vader, it seems that my colleague of Kalini has an infestation of Jedi. I simply cannot spare anyone to aid him. Perhaps, if my Lord would assist him in the pacification of Kal Madedo, it would alleviate some of our problems here?" 

Wellan was now moaning, face down on the holoplate, cursing the gods, Eirad, and the Jedi in sequence. 

Vader appeared to consider, playing the game with Eirad. 

"He has personally offered intelligence on criminal elements he feels we would find of particular interest, my Lord." 

Wellan began to cry. 

"Governor Wellan." At the sound of Vader's voice, the man jerked to attention so fast his chins were still jumping. "At the request of Moff Eirad, a loyal servant of the Empire, I will assist you in the resolution of your problems. I and a complement of troops will be in the Kalini system within twelve standard hours." 

It would actually take less time, but he wanted Wellan and those he would seek to warn to think they had a margin of running room. 

The man dredged up a sickly smile and made a shallow bow. "As it pleases you, Lord Vader." 

"It does not please me, Governor Wellan," Vader raised his hand and Wellan stumbled back as if getting out of the way of a striking viper. "It pleases the Empire to bring order where there is none. We will speak at length upon my arrival. I advise you to make yourself available. It would be most unfortunate if I had to come looking for you." 

The overdressed fool fainted, falling backward off the holoplate and terminating the connection. 

~ 


	14. Symmetry and Imperfection - 13

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 13

~

Naum studied the young woman sleeping across from him. In the pale, dim light from a glowball, she looked like an alabaster statue carved with a loving hand. They had hidden themselves in a cliff face that was being cut into a seaside hotel. Sound-deadening pads used by the cutting crews became soft beds in a large, rough chamber. 

The streets of Truce City were thick with bounty hunters – both amateur and professional – seeking a Jedi jackpot. There were rogue Jedi hunting for Abhaia and trying to stay a step ahead of the bounty hunters. One fool had tried to command the local militia who had killed him, then started killing each other over who would get to collect the Empire's bounty for the body. Through it all, he had tried to keep watch on Abi, to lead her into a different way of fighting, trying to lead her out of the shadows that he feared would swallow her whole. 

"What for, Jedi? Dead's dead no matter how it was done. I'm alive. He's not. I'm glad. Don't ask me to mourn." 

He had a feeling that in fact she did mourn, but kept the secret buried deep along with a multitude of others. 

For now, she appeared perfectly at rest, though he doubted that she could ever escape her past even in sleep. 

_No anger. Be objective, Jedi. _

It was hard to hold away outrage and anger as Abhaia told him – however grudgingly – of how the larger part of her life and nearly all that she loved had been stolen by power-hungry madmen. 

"It wasn't bad in the beginning. I was only two and there were lots of other kids to play with." They had hidden on the flat roof of a warehouse, under a metal awning protecting a cooling unit. "Then my parents started to fight, my grandmother and mother would argue with my father and grandfather. I don't know what it was about, but Keille and Isabail were afraid." 

Abi went quiet, her eyes looking inward. 

"One day my mother and grandmother came to the crèche to get me. They told me that we were going on a fun trip, and that I'd have to be very good and quiet until we got to the landing area. My mother was carrying me, my grandmother walking ahead of us." 

Abi's voice was toneless, impersonal. As if she was relaying something that had happened to someone else, even as her eyes brimmed with tears that she would not shed. Naum wanted to reach over and touch her in some way, breach the isolation she had wrapped herself in, but was uncertain how this might be received. 

"They were waiting for us and they were so angry. Father grabbed Mother, he was shouting. My grandfather just ran at Isabail – his wife, Force! They had been paired for thirty years! He wasn't shouting. He was dead-looking. Nothing in his eyes. Isabail drew her lightsaber and they started to fight." White-knuckled, voice trembling, Abi lifted the saber she carried. "She was a philosopher, Jedi. My mother said that if it had not been for the Jedi archivists and academics they both would have been farmers." 

"Abi" He started to simply touch her shoulder, only to have her flinch away. 

"She was no match for him. He cut her down. The second before his blade hit, she looked so peaceful. Then there was nothing left of her." 

Astonished, Naum snapped his head around to look at her. "Abi, among Jedi, to completely become one with the Force is a sign of tremendous ability. Your grandmother is not gone, she still lives within the Force itself, a part of it, a part of everything in this universe, maybe in every universe. She must have been very adept, and very powerful." 

"Not enough to stay alive." With that, she had turned away from him and refused to speak further. 

When the city became quiet with the nightfall and the evening rains, they had slipped down from the roof and tried to reach either the _Illumine_ or the _Maze Dancer_. Instead they wound up detouring around a three-way firefight between Kalini authorities, rogue Jedi and a coalition of bounty hunters for possession of the spaceport. Ships could be seen lifting by the hundreds, becoming a ribbon of red and green running lights fading into the silver-white when they kicked in their drives in the outer atmosphere. 

Finding the man-made caves had been Abi's idea. The beachfront was pockmarked with massive natural cave systems. Many of them had been incorporated into buildings that held to the cliff faces like a clutch-crab to its host/prey. Jilla's was just a small example of the architecture; most structures were designed to hold hundreds or thousands of people. 

The rhythmic rushing of the surf and the sound of rain outside their den appeared to calm her and she positioned her pad so that she could see outside. In a short time, her breathing took on the deep, slow rhythm of sleep. 

Naum stood and moved stealthily for one of the passageways. There was a suite of caves with a small outcropping that looked out over the surf. It was far enough that his voice would not carry and wake Abi. He had to contact the Council and report on the success of his mission to date. 

~ 

Rain and surf. 

Abhaia had always loved them. 

As a child on Lu'xiri, she and her parents had lived near the ocean. The house had been little more than columns to support a roof and moveable, counterweighted panels of plascrete for protection during storm season. Her father had taken her swimming almost from the day she was born. Even Jedi-trained children still had to form neurons and nerve pathways, but some of her earliest memories were of blue sky and floating in warm water, the sound of the surf. 

Rain patting on the roof and ground had often accompanied her to sleep or was with her when she woke. The healers who had trained her told her that the sound of the surf was reminiscent of the sounds a baby heard in the womb, the white noise of rain was often used to aid in the treatment of sleep disorders. 

Even after moving to Illoni, after Keille and Isabail's deaths, the sounds of rain and surf had the power to soothe her. She and Neve would curl up in Abhaia's bed under the window and listen to the rains come down. Lightning, thunder and roiling clouds would come in winter, but the spring and summer rains were mostly gentle. 

So much taken. So much gone. So much more to lose. 

Now she lay in the place between waking and sleeping, listening to the hypnotic rhythm of the surf amplified by the vaulted ceiling of the chamber. Her body felt so heavy, even to simply move her eyelids was too much effort. The entire day since the jump from the balcony had consisted of running, fighting, hiding, then running and fighting some more. 

It seemed her whole life had consisted of the same. 

Now too tired to move, too tired even to cry, she simply lay on the pad and drifted within her own mind. 

Darkness enfolded her, wrapping her in velvety coolness, smoothing the rough and jagged creature she had become. 

What had she become? Vader could sense her, touch her, even find her with no effort at all, yet Naum Kogan was sticking to her like a part of her wardrobe. He even tried to impart some Jedi teaching and philosophy to her here and there. Jedi and Sith, The lightest of Light and the darkest of Dark. What was she to them? Turning the puzzle over in her mind gave her no clues. 

On Heca, studying her mother's notes on the history of the Danu and her grandmother's monographs of Danui philosophy, she felt another way in the Force open for her. 

The Danu believed in the balance of all things. Light must be balanced by Dark. Good by evil. Birth by death. Creation by destruction. They believed that each drew and drove the other in an endless cycle of transmutation. The universe had begun with a feverish expansion caused by the death of a preceding universe. New universes could break off and grow for reasons and purposes unknown. Universes might exist like fruit on some unimaginable tree, or come into being at the flip of a credit-coin, spinning out from each turn on a path. 

It was dizzying. Each road not taken might become its own reality. 

The long-vanished Danu believed many things that the Jedi – the real ones – had shied away from. The very core of Danu teachings was Jedi, but had changed into something else entirely. Naum Kogan had told her that Isabail had become one with the Force, not just her mind and spirit, but her whole body. The Danu held this to be the way of the Master, that one could be so in tune with every particle of the universe that upon death the Master could move himself wholly into the universe and yet continue to exist in a distinct form. 

Maybe the Jedi was right, that in some form, Isabail was still there. It was cold comfort if it was so. 

Keille had not been allowed the option. Abhaia's father, Zairan, had come running to the Healer's quarters late one night and hauled Abhaia out of bed by main force. Bringing her to her grandfather's house, he had thrown her at what appeared to be a pile of bloody rags on the floor. Only when Abhaia had gently probed the broken being she had been brought to Heal had she realized that it was her mother. 

The injuries she had sustained were severe and multiple. Abhaia felt a simple, loving, regret-filled caress on her mind before Keille was gone. She fancied her father avoided her out of guilt after that – not that she had seen him much in the last decade - but he had come with Bren to stop her escape. 

She studied that confrontation once more. Bren had lurked in the background as Zairan first tried to reason with, then threatened her, asking if she wanted to meet her mother's end. She had cut them both down without a flicker of regret. 

Her stolen ship took her across the edge of the Outer Rim and into the wild places claimed neither by Empire or Republic. Bits of her old self flaked away with each confrontation and each death until there was only a mother predator looking for a place to birth her cub. In desperation, her belly markedly swelled with child, she sold the ship to a fence on Klion and took passage to Heca, called the Hermit's World. 

Out of the over one hundred billion stars in the galaxy, substantially less than one percent of the systems nurtured worlds capable of supporting unadapted non-tech-assisted humans; a few hundred million worlds at most. Human, busy breeders, highly adaptable and aggressive, filled every ecological niche they could stick a zygote into. 

Yet, Heca was so sparsely populated that it was remarkable. Adopting the voluminous robes of the figures depicted in ancient friezes, she took the part of hermit, secluding herself in the temperate grasslands on the equatorial continent. There she had studied, slept, gone swimming in the gentle waves of an inland sea, and contended with the increasingly fractious, kicking, impatient resident of her womb. 

In the end, Abhaia mused, Arien's impatience had paid off. The child's haste to get herself into the world resulted in Abhaia traveling with month-old child instead of a newborn. 

A painful emptiness fanned to life within her at the memory of her Arien, her body crying out for the return of the life she had brought into being. 

_Where are you now, my Hurried One? What are you doing? Do you miss me as much as I miss you? _

Tears slipped from beneath her closed eyelids, but she was too tired to raise a finger to wipe them away. Abhaia knew with deep certainty that despite what her trainers had told her, it was possible for a heart to break. 

The darkness seemed to roll over her now, a wave that was carrying her to some strange shore. It felt familiar, comfortable. Like something she had known but simply forgotten. Abhaia relaxed into the strong current, letting its strength pull her where it wished, allowing it to wear at the shields she wore to hide herself from others, and herself from herself. 

More tears trickled down her cheeks, she knew they were there, but she could not do anything about them. Time to heal, time to mourn had been denied her, but Neve had told her that was like letting a deep wound go unwashed. Eventually it would infect and poison the whole body. Still, she shied away, feeling the raw screaming of a fresh injury. 

On the trail of grief and soul-pain came a deep surge of anger. All she had wanted was a family! A real, loving family! First Isabail, then Keille, then Arien, then Neve had been taken from her. Yes, she had given up her child, but that had been forced upon her. Arien was as lost to her now as if she had never lived. 

The pull of the current seemed to increase until Abhaia almost believed she could hear the rhythmic breaking of waves on the shore. Deep, even, regular, the sound filled her head; rushing among the thoughts in her mind. Some instinct clamored to life within her, like the instinct that made the swimmer peer into the water at the feel of something beneath her. 

Alarmed, she trashed and then panicked when she realized that the enfolding darkness now held her as if swaddled. The dark wave hurried to that alien shore, and suddenly the surf seemed too regular, too even. A presence whirling with the power of the Dark pulled her close, batting aside her attempts to loosen herself and escape. Her self, all that animated the flesh she wore, cowered within her last shield. 

::: Lost One. Abhaia. :::

The last shield popped like a soap bubble at his touch and she felt the press of Vader's mind upon hers. He found the open wounds shrieking an insensible message of agony, touching each one with the method of one used to pain. She felt herself drawn into the spirit-storm, encompassed by it, shielded from any who might seek her. 

Cool fingers traced her soul and she felt/heard the trace of compassion in his command. 

::: Tell me, Abhaia. ::: She quailed as he touched each rip and shadow in her being. ::: Tell me. :::

~ 


	15. Symmetry and Imperfection - 14

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 13 

~

The Sith were much for proverb and aphorism. So much wisdom could be conveyed with a simple sentence. One of the most repeated maxims of the Sith, pounded into every apprentice's stubborn head from before the time of Sadow was this: 

"Be most careful in what you wish for; you might get it." 

On the face of it, having one's desire granted could hardly be construed as a bad thing. However, the form in which said desires were fulfilled could be stunningly different from what the one doing the wishing had in mind. 

An often-told tale was that of the apprentice who wished for rain and undertook to work the weather to fulfill his wish. Weather work was delicate and painstaking, requiring detailed knowledge of the area and of the elements. The apprentice's thumb-fingered handling of the elements caused a flood that wiped him, literally, off the map. 

But he did get his rain. 

Governor Wellan must feel a good deal like that hapless apprentice. On inspection, Vader was pleased to determine that the Kalini system was a likely candidate for Imperial scrutiny. It occupied a major jump point for light to medium-heavy classed vessels and was strategically located near mineral, metal and specialized tech worlds producing armaments, AI, and components used in kinetic-bleed shielding. 

Eirad wondered aloud who had been paid to keep that off the strategist's table. 

Vader had his list of candidates firmly in mind. Eirad came up with a few and some interesting motivations for each. Each list had names in common and Eirad had proposed a small wager. 

The bet on Vader's part was the complete set of volumes of Erishgal's The Time Before: A Comprehensive History of the Pre-Republican Galaxy. Vader had naturally made backup copies, but he had a special attachment to the originals. He'd been reading as time permitted for the last decade and wasn't even halfway through. 

If he lost, his Chief Archivist would likely have a fit and it would also likely take inordinate bribery to soothe her. Last time it had cost him a rare set of Tauri tribal icons to ease her temper and jolly her back to work. Sith Lord or not, Dark side or no, his Archivist was the only one in the complex who knew where _everything _was. 

It was worth the occasional aggravation to keep her contented, not to mention alive. 

The woman was pestering for more space, additional droids, and a larger budget, and she was getting irritable. Maybe a small moon could be found in Seized Properties. He'd have to look into it. 

Eirad's half of the bet was an ancient text of a people called the Danu, who had died out some 1,000 years ago. Settled though a swath of wild space, a few of their vacant worlds now fell within Imperial purview. The text was engraved upon a diamond-crystal matrix as large as Vader's fist and represented enough information to fill a wing of the Imperial Library. 

If Vader lost the bet, he'd buy it from the scholar, who confessed that the runeset of the Danui made no sense to him at all and he'd had no time to study. That battleship of an Archivist would likely let him slide over losing the Erishgal for an acquisition of this type. 

All the same. Wellan, who a scant eight hours ago would have paid anything for Imperial intervention to rid him of Jedi, was probably watching a tactical readout and would likely pay anything to rid himself of Imperials. 

_Interdictor_-class ships were stationed at all possible jump points. Even the ships fleeing the system like flocks of frightened birds had no sure escape, they would be decanted from hyperspace, corralled and inspected by troops aboard the corvettes and gunships with each interdiction group. In system, the _Triumphant_ and two other destroyers were on approach to Kal Madedo. The Kalini system defense force had stood down the minute the trio had dropped out of hyperspace with weapons arrays at the ready. 

Standard procedure dictated a slow approach to Kal Madedo, taking the battle group through each successive ring of defenses, occupying the installations with Imperial troops and moving progressively insystem. The Kalini – much to Imperial derision - generally threw up their hands and surrendered with no shots fired. 

Vader turned off the tactical display in his private quarters. A newly-transferred lieutenant commander, Andries Piett by name, had arranged the garrison rotations so that the occupation was moving ahead twenty-five percent faster than it had previously. Vader stuck young Garza to the man in hopes that the youngster was still flexible enough to learn by example. He'd be keeping an eye on both. It was getting damned hard to find competent men mixed in with all the parade-dressed dolts being churned out of the Academy. 

Three hours to Kal Madedo orbit, with Piett's accelerated schedule. It was time to see if he could snare young Abhaia. 

In his meditation chamber, he spread his perception out, feeling the churning sparks of anger, fear, greed and hatred throughout the Kalini system. Here and there, some individual bonfires stood out – other Force-strong individuals letting anger and aggression flare about them as if a corona around an eclipse. Rogues, most likely. 

Vader was looking for more stealthy prey; someone used to hiding, using misdirection and camouflage. 

A barely perceptible eddy, a ripple of keenly-felt loss lapped his perception. Vader sank into utter stillness and schooled himself to wait. 

Stronger. Pain singing through the Dark. Grief like a knife in the heart. The echoing emptiness of loss. Each surge increasing in strength. 

Vader reached, tugging at the edges of these emotions. Finding Abhaia self-lost in the center of them, he flexed his strength within the Dark side, creating a current that drew her closer. She followed, still deep in introspection, unaware that she was drifting near enough that he could read her state of mind easily. Her soul roiled with darkness and light, love and grief... and hate for those who had caused such pain. 

He exerted a little more strength, the current firmed about her now; holding her as much as carrying her. When she became aware, it was too late, his grip too strong. Not even one of her emotional barrages could break his hold. Vader squelched, neutralized, or simply ignored everything that she sent at him. 

Though strong, determined and very adept, the gaps in her training were massive. Abhaia, to Vader's way of thinking was actually less than half trained. Now that he had her measure, the rest would be considerably easier. 

Down to her last defense, the most basic shield that even a child could make, she trembled in his mental grip. The shield winked out of existence at the slightest pressure leaving Abhaia defenseless and exposed to scrutiny. 

All though her being, the Healer's ability was manifest. Had she been trained by the Jedi, she would have been the one of the strongest Healers that had ever lived. As it was, she was exceptionally powerful with both Light and Dark working within her in a way that puzzled him. 

Sith teaching held that Dark and Light would cancel each other out, that to become powerful in the Dark meant the exclusion of the Light. Perhaps the Healing ability, a Lightsider ability exclusively, was being reworked by Abhaia's repeated use of Dark energies. 

She was drained, not just mentally, but physically, as if her body had undergone a great ordeal and not been given adaquate time to recover. Though Vader was certainly no Healer, he knew the signs of an enormous physical trial. Perhaps her flight and constant battling over months could produce this type of wear. 

Vader turned his attention next to those areas in Abhai's self that emitted agony, probing at them gently he found old and new wounds. Anger. Betrayal. Mourning. Loss. The finality of death. 

These he understood. 

Drawing her within his shields, his mind pressed upon hers and traced her spirit with a cool touch. 

::: Tell me, Abhaia. Tell me. ::: 

Nothing. She drew in tightly upon herself, denying him any response. 

Vader sighed internally. They never made it easy. The most stubborn male was malleable compared to the equivalent female. 

He selected and old, deep injury, one with heat still pulsing under time's protective scar and 

The resulting backblast from Abhaia was galvanic. She went right for him with every intent to meet pain with pain and Vader became aware that he held a nexu by the tail. 

He delivered a mental blow that stunned her to stillness once more. 

:::'Tell me, young one.::: 

She flung her response at him as if it were a missile. ::: Why? ::: 

::: 'Why' does not matter. Only that I wish to know and you will – eventually – tell me. ::: 

He made no threats. He did not need to. Instead he brought pressure to bear on the oldest injury until 

_Saberflash fighting angerfear NONONONO! thrust and counter and slash and block and parry her face calm, knowing that she could not hold him off much longer an enraged charge and full-body thrust through the chest Grammaaaaaa! _

Vader reeled from the power of the memory and the emotions that stormed in its wake like hurricanes gone mad. He ruthlessly invoked memory after memory of broken bodies, shattered minds, torn lives until Abhaia lay all but flayed alive. 

::: You have been given pain, Abhaia. All that you loved, valued and cared for is laid waste. ::: Vader whispered into her soul. ::: Healer, gentle Life-Giver, what do you do when a malignancy blooms? What can you do when a parasite sucks the life from all it meets? You hunt it down, you cut it out, you kill it.::: 

With each word he sent her images of her kills, contrasting them with the images he took from her own mind. In time, she would learn to block him out, but for now rapport would come at his whim. Feeling some resistance, he reached for a newer, still raw injury. 

and got a Force-projected kick that made his physical ears ring! 

Well. 

Abhaia fought back as if she had lost all sanity, warding that memory as if it were more precious to her than her soul. 

This merited a closer look. 

_Swollen belly floating in warm waves a child's hand splayed against the inside of a warm noisy place in response to light pain and contraction after contraction a new life wailing out her first breath a mother's love and fierce protectiveness fear anger hunted running pursuit relentless, never-ending pursuit fear for the child overwhelming all other considerations pain grief loss, searing, agonizing loss and ending_

There was only one thing that could cause that feeling of finality, like the stone door of a tomb sealing out the last light of the world of the living. 

Death. Abhaia's child was dead. 

Vader found himself blinking in shock, pity coloring the Darkness around them. Abhaia could have healed any illness or defect in the child, he knew that just from a glance. This woman could heal anything short of death itself. 

Abhaia's mental presence was one keening wail of suffering. Vader let her howl until she was once again limp and quiescent. Ready to die. 

Idly, almost absent-mindedly, he stroked the suffering captive spirit. Once, the man he had been before had thought to become powerful enough to keep people from dying. In the end, that man had lost all he loved. Now this woman burned with the same fire and Vader could see very easily what would be reborn from the ashes. 

::: You have done well in your blood-hunt, youngling, ::: Vader murmured into the Dark. ::: But even now, more is being brought to bear on you than you can handle alone. You can feel the truth of this for yourself. You can still fight them, damage them, but in the end you will be outnumbered, and you will be killed. ::: 

Abhaia was listening with all of her attention. 

::: I offer you a chance to avenge the deaths and the injustices done by these ' righteous' Jedi. You will have my protection, and the chance to fully pursue the path you have chosen. ::: 

::: What do you want of me? ::: Her response was guarded. 

:::That you become my apprentice, bound by the ways of the Sith.::: 

Utter shock echoed back to him, along with the image of Abhaia as the prize in a tug of war. 

:::The Sith take none who are not willing, Abhaia. All who come to us come with eyes open, we have no need of fools. Come to me of your own free will.::: 

If Vader knew the Jedi, the Council or whatever passed for it – probably had the lone Jedi by the balls and brainstem. He would need to report, and probably do that in utmost secrecy. Vader inserted a thought that would give her something to chew over until he arrived at Kal Madedo. 

Just before he broke rapport, he planted the seed of doubt. ::: I am many things, Abhaia, but a liar is not one of them. Can your Jedi face you as I have? And where is he now? ::: 

Vader opened his eyes and smiled into the darkness. 

~ 


	16. Symmetry and Imperfection - 15

Symmetry and Imperfection 

Part 15 

~

It took much time and tinkering to get the aging communications equipment to work at all. Between having to find a clear channel to slice and secure and cajoling the connection into stability, Naum began to worry that Abi would wake and find him missing. She was suspicious of everyone – not that he could blame her – but he wanted to do nothing more that would make her see Jedi in a bad light. 

The connection finally stabilized and Naum sighed in relief. The Council was fanatical about getting reports from their agents in the field. 

"Knight Koghan, what is the status of your mission?" The image of a small, pink-skinned being, one empty eye socket closed by a scar and a topknot of thin brownish hair resolved itself on the receiver. 

Naum's sigh of relief turned into a quickly suppressed groan of disappointment. 

Of all the Council that might have taken the com tonight, Naum wished that it had not been Master Piell. 

The Lannik always saw things in black and white. His mind ran in straight lines and he had little use for any deviation from what he saw as the sure course. While the small master was one to carry through with a plan, despite any obstacles, he had little care for those who might be caught between him and his goal. While he had compassion for those hapless beings, it was Naum's opinion that compassion after the fact was the next thing to useless. The master focused on the Unifying Force, discounting the Living Force as being purely of the moment, and therefore trivial for one who took the long view. 

Naum was becoming of the mind that the Living Force influenced the Unifying Force. Certainly the effects of 'trivial beings' were being felt throughout the galaxy. With the chaos that this mission had become, and the many shades of gray between the black and white, there could not be a worse choice of master to hear his report. 

"There are many developments within the scope of the mission, Master Piell. I was hoping that the Council might be able to guide me to some resolution." If he could get someone like Master Dimas or Master Uadi 

"The Council has given you a mission. We are concerned that you accomplish it as directed, not with side issues, Knight Koghan." Piell's ears flattened perpendicular to his head and his scarred face showed annoyance. 

No, there was not a worse master to whom he could report. Naum took a deep breath, banished emotion from his mind, and reported the events only in direct relation to Abhaia. Where he felt that he could, he laced in what he knew of her past, and of the rogue Jedi on her trail. When he brought up the people she had left behind, suggesting the Council would find no opposition if they were to evacuate Illoni of the captive women and children, he received a very rude shock. 

"That is irrelevant to your mission, Knight Koghan." 

Naum could only blink at the hologram and think that his transmission must have crossed another on the same frequency and scrambled the words. 

"How?" The question leaped from his brain to his tongue before he could censor it. 

Now Master Piell wore the incredulous expression that only a moment before had been on his own face. Naum almost expected his topknot to stand on end from astonishment. "Knight Koghan?" 

"How is the welfare of the people, suffering people, held unjustly, treated as livestock, irrelevant to my mission? Especially as the perverted miscreants calling themselves Jedi are the ones holding them and who had a hand in the creation of the mission you sent me on?" Naum's voice was utterly level, but memories of Qui-Gon and other maverick masters who made the Council squirm filled his head. "We are fond of calling ourselves the guardians of freedom and justice, master, but whose freedom and justice are we guarding? The people suffer, master, and where are the Jedi? Hiding like _phrix_ bugs when someone turns on a light." 

The Lannik was looking at him as if Naum had spontaneously grown an extra head. "You were told to acquire the woman, ascertain whether or not she is capable of being rehabilitated and to neutralize" 

Naum raised his voice, the first time he had ever done so to a member of the Council. "You mean, I was told to kill her and scuttle back under a rock if we attracted any notice." 

He was tremendously gratified to see the flap-eared stump flinch. 

"Knight Koghan" Peill stressed the title. 

"Yes, _Master_ Piell, I am a Jedi Knight. I took an oath to uphold justice, and freedom. To foster peace and alleviate suffering. To uphold the dignity and value of all beings." Bitterness coated his tongue with the taste of ashes and dust. "I fought, Master, to live that oath. I held to the Code. I will live and die a Jedi and know that I upheld the spirit of the Jedi, rather than what we have allowed ourselves to become." 

Piell's jaw was almost resting on his chest and Naum was waiting for a thousand generations of Jedi to arise and strike him dead. What he had said was so close to Skywalker's defiance of the Council that it gave Naum the shivers. 

It apparently reminded Master Piell of the same instance. It was one of the wedge events that had driven the people even farther from seeing the not only Jedi, but the Republic Senate, as having anything to do with them or their 'petty' concerns. The Lannik master gathered himself for a rebuttal and then stopped, his eyes tracking something in the dimness behind Naum. 

Turning, Naum caught a flash of scarlet in the darkness. A soft step gritting in stone dust and sand reached his ears and Abi stepped into the light, her wide blue eyes fixed on him. Her sleep had not been restful, she was disheveled, and looked even more exhausted than when she had laid down some four hours ago. 

"Abi" He had to explain to her something that he could not even begin to explain to himself, stopping when she raised one small hand. 

"I heard enough, Jedi Koghan." Quiet and soft, her voice silenced him with its tone of resolve and her eyes were weary and haunted as they met his. "You are a Jedi knight and an honorable man. You are all that I was told a Jedi could be." 

"But" He stopped in astonishment as she stepped up to him and pressed a finger to his lips, the only physical contact she had permitted, much less initiated. 

"Hush. I know what you were ordered to do. I know, now, that you omitted a great many things that you should have told me. But I also understand why you did it." A smile ghosted across her lips. "We all have secrets, Naum. You are a good and loyal man, I bear you no ill-will for doing what you felt you had to do. I will trust you after this to listen to your own conscience and not the dictates of another." 

She removed the silencing finger from his lips Naum found himself falling into the aquamarine of her eyes. Piell was jabbering, but the words made no sense. Nothing made sense anymore. Slender golden-brown fingers brushed through his hair, his hands rested somehow on her slender waist, and he registered the shock of her lips on his. 

Piell's jabbering stopped as if someone had tossed him down a black hole and there was only the sounds of surf and rain. Only the feeling of Abhaia's light frame against his and the benediction of her kiss. 

Abi broke the kiss, her arms twined around him as she smiled into his eyes. There were a thousand things that he wanted to say, but she spoke first in a voice resonant with power. 

"Sleep, Naum Koghan." 

~


	17. Symmetry and Imperfection - 16

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 16

~

When Abhaia awakened with Darth Vader's last questions ringing in her skull, she looked first for the Jedi and had not found him. 

Can your Jedi face you as I have? And where is he now? Vader's voice taunted her. 

"Let's bloody find out, shall we?" she snarled back. 

Rolling off the pad, her legs nearly went out from under her as she tried to stand. The mental battle with the Sith had drained her even more than she thought. It took some few minutes before she could cajole them into working at all. 

Shadow-stalking down the empty stone hallways, flitting from room to room, she hunted the Jedi. A part of her trusted the Jedi, another part of her – a part that was coldly pragmatic – told her that trust could kill the last thing in this life that she cared about. Vader thought her child dead, while Naum Koghan and those he reported to knew nothing. 

This was how it had to be. 

One thing that Abhaia would not, could not permit was for Naum Koghan to interfere in the last thing that would insure Arien's safety. These men she was fleeing hated to loose, and Grandfather more than most. They were capable of slaughtering ever last Oathkin until they found Arien. What Abhaia had done to inhibit Arien's ability to use the Force was not something Perran that would be capable of understanding or controlling; he would therefore kill Arien for bearing it. Perran Jasc and his adherents must be destroyed. 

It seemed unlikely that the Jedi would undertake to do that, or that he would stand still while she did it herself. He seemed to have no stomach for combat. 

The sound of a man's voice rose momentarily over the echoes of the surf and Abhaia turned to follow it. Once she tracked him, she stayed in the shadows and listened. What she heard made her draw one of the vibroblades out of its sheath in her boot and consider her aim carefully. 

The next sentence out of Naum's mouth made her replace it and brought tears to her eyes. He defied the other Jedi, apparently his master, and spoke of what a Jedi was meant to be, what his oaths meant to him. 

Naum was a good man. She could not kill him for allowing himself to believe that his Council was just as honorable. In Abhaia's experience honorable, reasonable, decent people truly believe that others are the same way. They looked for the better nature in all, not realizing that a large portion of beings did not have a better nature. 

_Perhaps that is an indicator of my own evil, that I could never see that light, only the darker side of nature._

A presence touched her through the Force. Vader. Close by. 

If she could not kill him, she could not let this honorable Jedi meet his end at the Sith Lord's hands, either. 

The holoprojected being had been about to launch into what might have been a legendary dressing down as Abhaia stepped out of the shadows. Naum turned to look at her, shame and guilt written in his expression and posture. 

"Abi" Naum's brown eyes were dark with an anguish that he likely could not name. He had so wanted her to believe in the benevolence and wisdom of his vaunted Council. He had so wanted to believe in it. It was hard to see him betrayed. 

Raising her hand, she forestalled his explanations, to know too much of him would make doing what she had planned that much the harder. She knew what she needed to know in order to do what she needed to do. 

"I heard enough, Jedi Koghan. You are a Jedi knight and an honorable man. You are all that I was told a Jedi could be." And he was. As she began to gather her power, she thought with regret that all that those stories told by Isabail and Keille were true, just not true of all Jedi. 

"But" 

This time she stopped his words more directly. She moved close enough that he had to tuck his chin to look at her and pressed her finger to his lips. A brief, pleasant pang reached her through her Healer's senses; astonishment mixed with pleasure that she had brought herself to touch him was topmost, but there was a muddy undercurrent of other emotions. 

"Hush. I know what you were ordered to do. I know, now, that you omitted a great many things that you should have told me. But I also understand why you did it." Loyalty, honor, and dedication; between Naum Koghan and Darth Vader, there was enough to make up for the lack in all of Grandfather's men. Such similar men, and such vast differences. 

"We all have secrets, Naum," she continued. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth; she was all but made of shadows and secrets now. "You are a good and loyal man, I bear you no ill-will for doing what you felt you must do, I will trust you after this to listen to your own conscience and not the dictates of another." 

_And I hope you will not hate my memory for what I must do. Forgive me, please. I cannot let my darkness destroy your light._

Her Healer's gift needed more contact, and she needed his full, undivided attention. The Jedi on the other end of the holoprojector was blabbering at top speed, ears flapping hard enough that he might well take off. Holding Naum's warm, gold-brown eyes with hers, she stepped even closer. Body to body, she ran her fingers through his hair and then lifted herself on her toes to kiss him. 

If her initial touch had brought a shock, this more intimate touch elicited a veritable quake from the allegedly unemotional Jedi. The emotional slurry Abhaia had sensed moved to the surface and she reeled in surprise. Compassion, pity, care, the need to heal her spirit were as basic to Naum Koghan as her need to heal an ailing or injured body. This man was like Neve, but had become a warrior instead. Old scars rived through his spirit like veins of carbon through marble; a shadow-hunter, a shape-changer, an assassin. 

When he responded to her kiss, Abhaia suddenly found it incredibly difficult to concentrate. Passion and desire swirled through her senses so that she was unsure what was coming from Naum and what was originating from within herself. Twining her arms around him, she gently broke the kiss. 

Oh, yes, she had all of his attention now. Likely he would not notice if the entire Imperial Navy conducted a live-fire exercise in the next room. 

Tuning her power, she struck. 

"Sleep, Naum Koghan." 

Surprise stole briefly over Naum's features before the anesthesia Abhaia invoked claimed him. Lowering him gently to the ground, Abhaia cradled the back of his head, shielding it from the rock of the floor. The creature Naum had been communicating with jabbered at her, but she simply ignored it for the time being. 

Naum would be safe enough in one of the suite's inner rooms. The stonecutters were busy roughing out the floor plan and finish work could not be started until they were done. Sonic stonecutters had to be tuned very carefully, the slightest interference from another cutter on a different frequency could collapse an entire cliff. 

Abhaia rifled through Naum's belt until she found a pocket lumen. Clipping it to her tunic, she turned it on, took hold of the unconscious Jedi and dragged him into a small antechamber. Propping him against the wall, she made sure he would have at least eight solid hours of sleep. This anesthetic was part of the Healer's repertoire; many Force users could not handle chemical anesthesia. 

Gently, she ran her fingers through his hair. It might have been nice to get to know him. As she had done with Arien, she impressed her feelings on his unconscious mind. He would find them in the front of his thoughts when he awoke. 

::: Thank you, Jedi, for all that you thought to do. May the Force be with you, and may you find your own path, rather than the one that others would have you take. Remember me; Abhaia the Healer, daughter of Keille, daughter of Isabail. ::: 

Standing, she brushed stone dust from her knees and walked back into the main chamber. The holoprojected creature watched her as one might a particularly dangerous predator. The thought amused her. In a way, she was a predator, but she was only dangerous to those who were a danger to her. 

"What have you done with him?" 

Abhaia raised an eyebrow. "He's still breathing, if that's what you want to know. I have not harmed him. Consider him neutralized, but not as you would have had him do to me." The words were bits of ice as they left her lips. 

The creature said nothing. 

"Know this, Jedi Master, I spared Naum Koghan because he is the Jedi that you will never be. Whatever the Jedi were, they now call Darksider anyone who disagrees with them. They should be shouting it at themselves." Abi ignited her saber, gratified to see the being flinch. "Send any more after me" 

She let the words trail off as a cold smile bloomed on her face. With a flourish, she spun her saber into a two-handed grip over her head, point down and slammed in into the communications equipment. The image vanished in a squall of static and feedback and the room was dark once more. 

She stood in the dark for a while, listening once more to the rush of the surf until wild flares of panic flashed through her Force-sense. Her grandfather's men had just noticed that the Sith Lord was all but standing on them. That presence reached out for her now, and she stilled every part of her mind as Vader's spirit touched her own. 

::: I am here. ::: 

~ 


	18. Symmetry and Imperfection - 17

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 17

~

Imperial destroyers dropped out of hyperspace nearly on top of him and Perran Jasc had no choice but to decamp from his orbit around the fifth planet. The moonlet that he taken refuge on was a cookie-dough composite of ice and rock, allowing his ship to shed heat and thus avoid detection. Otherwise, he certainly would have been caught. 

He sensed Palpatine's abomination with the group and cursed. Between the wretched witch-spawn, the Sith, the turmoil on Kal Madedo and the military might in the system, his men were being drawn and quartered. In one day, due to his granddaughter alone, he had lost six men. Four ran afoul of the Imperial blockades at various outbound jump points. Seven more were dead due to causes unknown; but if Perran had to place bets, he'd lay his money on bounty hunters. 

Closing his eyes, he dropped into a light trance. What he sensed made him clench his jaw until it cramped; the ranks had been decimated. 

Where he had once had over a hundred warriors, there were now less than sixty and some few of those were so far away it would take weeks to get to them. Kal Madedo was a killing ground, now, with half of his remaining strength concentrated there and little hope that they would be able to fight their way free. 

_Abhaia. Witch-child, your life is mine for this._

As if thought had conjured her, Abhaia's aura in the Force bloomed with unexpected ferocity. Perran could almost see the flash of lightsabers, smell the ozone of burnt rock. 

He felt the death of another man, Nalarn. Shallow cut just above the tailbone, followed by 

Perran clutched at his neck, eyes wide. 

::: Grandfather, you stayed. I thought you would be gone in a flash once you figured out what was happening. An old acquaintance of yours contacted me and offered to teach me some new tricks, but it seems that your cadre have other ideas. ::: The thought was gleeful and Abhaia's voice was as clear as if he stood next to her. ::: I hope to give you a wonderful view of hell, old man. ::: 

Perran was so furious that he could not frame a thought in response. Vader, she could only mean Vader. She would ally with that that filth! A torrent of images ran through his mind, aimed at Abhaia. If he could hurt her enough, cause enough overload of her empathy he might 

White-hot pain bloomed behind and under his left eye, increasing until he thrashed helplessly in his chair. A sudden popping sensation was accompanied by a short-lived relief; the front of his tunic was drenched in blood. 

::: No more threats, old man. What you wanted of me is beyond your reach. Face me ::: 

The stars outside the viewport flashed to lines and Abhaia's voice faded as if she had been yanked into some unimaginable distance. They had gone to hyperspace. 

"Sir! Two gunships spotted our position. You weren't answering and we had to move. Sir?" Captain Brilan's voice came over the com. 

Perran was able to keep his voice from shaking, but his entire body quaked to make up for it. "Very good, Brilan. The Imperials are sitting on every known jump point, I'll assume you are jumping us well out?" 

"Sir, I've plotted a jump to one of the old intell posts. I don't think anyone living knows about this one." 

The intell posts were boltholes for Jedi agents and did not show up on the navigation charts for any military or civilian use. They were almost invariably deep space platforms, stocked with resupply items and repair facilities. 

"Very good, captain." Perran discommed and began to bring his body under control, angry that the girl had been able to touch him even at a distance. Her power in the Dark side was growing. He had to eliminate her, yes, but how? 

Stripping off his tunic, he used the sleeve to blot up the last of the blood dripping from his nose and then stuffed the ruined clothing in the oubliette. If he gave his men any idea of how powerful the girl truly was they would run screaming. After all most – if not all of them – had provided her with a steady supply if injured and ailing bodies to heal, not to mention a steady stream of pregnant females and the resulting babes and children to care for. 

Perran grimaced. He'd had little use for his steadfastly pacifist and nonassertive granddaughter, but he had allowed her to be trained in the healing arts instead of selling her off. At the time, keeping the girl was the only way to control her mother, Keille. He deeply regretted his daughter's death, but if she had not been so trenchant in her heresy 

_There is and can only be one true way. To shelter the taint of heresy is to loose a plague in your own house. Look at the Sith, look at the Dark Jedi and all the suffering they have caused. Keille persisted in following her mother's path; she earned her heretic's death._

Washing his face in the small refresher, he looked for any outward signs of Abhaia's attack on him. At ninety, he was still – he noted with no small pride – quite a fine specimen. His bronze skin, sharp features, silver hair and blue eyes added to the charisma of his magnetic personality. Even his body could easily be mistaken for that of a man thirty years younger. 

But he was not young. The average human lifespan was only one hundred and fifty-odd years with some types living significantly less or more. Sixty years was not a great amount of time in which to establish his final legacy. In time, Perran Jasc would be remembered for the resurrection of the Jedi order. With an army of Force-strong warriors, bred for battle, he would wipe the Empire, the Emperor, and all the attendant vileness from the face of the galaxy. The Jedi would rule as was their right and due, mercifully protecting the easily led and gullible beings who had betrayed them. 

There was a slight tenderness and swelling to one side of his nose. A subtle discoloration marked the area of the bleed. 

When he caught Abhaia, he would take her back to Illoni. There he would flay her alive, rip her spirit to tatters, and let her bleed to death in the dirt. Those who thought to defy the places chosen for them should be quelled by the spectacle. History would see the need, even if those living out the events could – or would – not. 

~ 

Governor Fargram Wellan was where Vader expected he would be. However, the ridiculous man had drunk himself insensible, and was useless as far as getting any coherent information went. 

Vader ordered the entire staff – those who had not run off - placed under arrest and held for standard interrogation. Wellan's whiskey-sodden body was carried off to a very odd little cell on the grounds of the governor's mansion; a rough meter-square iron box on black sand, located in the middle of a white-walled courtyard. 

By midmorning tomorrow, the governor would offer Vader his soul in exchange for a glass of water and be grateful for the chance to do so. 

The mansion commanded its own hilltop and looked down at Truce City and the night-dark ocean below. Fires and rising smoke marred the pretty display and the sounds of the surf were interspersed with explosions and alarms. Pacification had begun. 

The militia and the bounty hunters were proving intractable, the deathprices for the Jedi blotted out all sense and the clever Jedi were beyond the means of the straightforward stormtroopers to catch. A three-way firefight over possession of the spaceport had become a two-way slaughter when an Imperial commander called in a pinpoint bombing on all factions. The Jedi – smarter than those whom they were fighting – vanished from their position just before it was vaporized and merged themselves into the turmoil in the streets. 

Vader shook his head over this monumental example of mission creep; he certainly had his work cut out for him. At least his pro forma report to the Emperor brought an equally pro forma reply. Whatever it was that was keeping his master's attention so completely occupied, Vader wished it to continue indefinitely. 

Vader was about to break two millennia of Sith tradition. Since the time of Bane there had never been more than two Sith at once, but he could not let someone of Abhaia's power and potential slip away for the outmoded traditions of his lineage. 

Finding her signature, he bridged the small distance with a tendril of darkness. 

::: I am here. ::: 

Vader felt the aftermath of battle singing in his apprentice's blood and smiled as she schooled her mind to stillness. Feather-brushes of fear, light and quick, still disturbed the calm she sought. 

::: You fear me. ::: 

Her response came without hesitation. ::: Yes. ::: 

::: Most wise. Have you considered your path, youngling? ::: 

Her response was wordless, composed of images interlaced with strong emotion. Anguish and indecision were strongest, pulling her back to the sure and familiar even as the reality of that course repelled her. 

Oddly enough, he understood and was even sympathetic to her vacillation. Even as Anakin Skywalker had been seared out of existence and Darth Vader had been born, there had been a deep reluctance to become one with the Dark. It was only through the seemingly endless surgeries and recuperation that Vader had come fully to terms with his destiny. Anakin Skywalker had died to give Vader life, and in return, Vader would grant Skywalker the one thing that flawed and hobbled man could never attain – vengeance and with it, peace. 

Recently, the dead man had been fairly lively. This happened from time to time and took some energy to quell – the conscience-ridden ghost could be notional and had proven all but impossible to eliminate. Vader had decided that he was not going to die trying. 

Abhaia emanated a dreary gray misery and a dense frustration, unhappy with the paths before her, but cognizant that she must choose and go forward. 

::: Only the path of the Sith can lead you to what you desire. ::: 

He felt her fearful resistance once more, but this time it was laced with resignation and a sense of utter desolation. 

::: And your Jedi companion? ::: 

A welt of betrayal and disappointment marked her spirit. ::: He could not face me. He sneaked off while I slept. I looked for him. He's hidden away in the caves, but I found and destroyed his communications gear. He had orders to neutralize me. ::: 

Vader nodded to himself. It was as he had expected. 

::: Come to me, Abhaia. ::: 

Her answer was less than a whisper in his thoughts, but filled him with a dark and thunderous exaltation. 

::: I come, my Master. ::: 

~ 


	19. Symmetry and Imperfection - 18

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 18

~

All through the city, battles rage between the factions. Smoke and fire raged in several sectors and corpses rocked in the surf at the foot of the cliffs. Blood and charred organic matter marred the pastel exteriors of the buildings along with deep pockmarks caused by energy weapons and shrapnel. 

Imperial stormtroopers, anonymous behind their death's-mask helmets patrolled the streets in twelvesquads. Thus far, they had efficiently dispensed with the local militia and the Peace Keepers had run for the hills at the first flash of white armor. The bounty hunters, with the corpses of their comrades coloring the white plascrete sidewalks with a variety of blood and ichor were reluctantly starting to reconsider the consequences of their pursuit of Jedi. 

Perran's Jedi, for their part, knew themselves trapped and hunted simultaneously for Abhaia and for any possible escape route. 

Abhaia stood over a fresh kill, rage reddening her eyes. Perran Jasc had escaped. Though she was not sure that she could have killed him, she knew that she had managed to cause him pain. Despite the fact that the mental contact had been bell clear, her grip on his physical person was tenuous at best. Perran was not the type to put himself at risk, hence, he had seldom needed the services of a Healer. The only thing Abhaia could latch on to was his presence in the Force. If he was going to die - and Abahaia was determined to manage that with her last breath of she must – it would have to be on her blade. 

The bone-vibrating hum of an Armored Personnel Carrier reached her. Slipping into the shadows of an alleyway, she hid behind the massive block of a cooling unit until they passed. 

Dimly, she could sense her new master preoccupied with his current duel. Vader was keen on the hunt and seemed to have a knack for tracking even the most sly of the warriors. Thus far, the score was three make that four to zero. Vader was not so much as scratched. 

A shiver racked her once more at the thought of Vader. She had willingly chained herself by oath to a Dark Lord of the Sith. The Danu had said that no chains could ever bind more tightly than those assumed by one's own free will. Now Abhaia knew the deepest truth of that statement; she was as much a slave as if she had been sold in the Great Market on Nar Shaada. The only difference was that she had sold herself for revenge and the chance to stop the pain of her people instead of platinum. 

::: Never a slave, my apprentice. Never think it. You serve of your own will. If you are a slave, you are a slave to yourself, but never to me. ::: 

Vader's mind-voice was at the same time heated and coldly serious, the scolding delivered with a mental sting that made her wince. 

::: Yes, my Master. I am sorry. ::: Reflexively, she looked down at the toes of her boots as if he stood in front of her. 

::: Time enough to correct your perceptions of your status when I have you in hand. Where are you? ::: 

Thinking about the first statement made her want to turn tail and run for all her legs were worth. However, that would mean death from several possible sources, not to mention deep unpleasantness from Vader should he catch her alive. 

::: I'm in the Fifth Ward of the Irello District. Near the Street of Ten Thousand Pleasures. ::: 

Stepping out of the alley, she reconnoitered the street. The District was usually humming with boisterous traffic in and out of the whorehouses, drug dens, and pornie shows. Perfume, sweat, and the miasma of alcohol and other intoxicants normally seemed to swirl like mist in the gaudy lighting of the establishments. Now only ashes blew down the street, the signs were dark, and the ornate metal shutters that graced the Kalini buildings were pulled tight. 

::: I'm moving west to the beach walks down the Street of Flowers ::: The airy expanse of bridges and repulsor platforms along the bluffs should give her plenty of cover. 

Vader's amusement echoed in her skull. ::: You mean, you are right _here_. ::: 

A streetlight sparked to life over her head, bathing her in the blue-white glow of halogen and Abhaia nearly fainted. He knew where she was! 

::: You see, this close, I know exactly where you are. If you ran – and I know that you were considering it, child - I could light up every street lamp along your route. Do you understand, my apprentice? ::: 

Abhaia drew a shaky breath and conceded the point. ::: Now please, Master, put the damned thing out. ::: 

The lamp darkened once more, but Abhaia found herself staring nervously up and down the street. Irrationally, she wished for her cloak to hide in and then remembered where she had left it. Rage flared along her veins; Neve's body wrapped in a cloak on a barroom floor after a pain-filled and frightening death. 

::: Avenge her, youngling. Pay them death for death and make the interest higher than they ever imagined. ::: 

As Abhaia stalked down the wide avenue to the beach, her growl of agreement was her only response. 

~ 

Naum dreamed. 

Memories, desires, and the deepest wishes of his soul played in the deepest recesses of his brain. 

The Jedi who found him in the depths of Coruscant when Naum was just a few months old brought the hungry and neglected infant to the infirmary. Naum remembered the touch of the Jedi master's mind on his with wonder. There was unconditional acceptance, love and compassion without limit. Night after night the Jedi master allowed Naum to fall asleep on his chest, listening to his heart and basking in the utter security of being wanted. The Healers, the Tenders, even the Creche Masters were each distinct and beloved memories. Master Yoda, leaning on his gimer stick, gently encouraging Naum and the rest of the Sunhawk Clan to feel the Force around them. 

The Temple stood whole and proud. The riots and destruction that was triggered by the reported death of Anakin Skywalker at the hands of his own master far away in time. The late summer sun poured like translucent gold though the windows in the Hall of the Convocation and the serenity of those within was nourishment to the soul. 

Eran bis Mivall, his master, looked up from his reading to chide him about being late for dinner, his hazel eyes laughing as Naum attempted to deny the very existence of a hickey on his neck. 

Prana Fairsky, his friend and study mate, swearing like a trooper as they scrambled into their clothing, late for their own Knighting dinner because of a more intimate celebration. 

"Hmm. Shrunk your tunic has, Knight Koghan." The entire dining hall burst out laughing as he and Prana heartily wished for the fabled hole in the ground that they could sink into. 

_Prana, oh, Prana. I miss you, friend of my body and spirit._

He writhed in the grip of this enforced sleep, protesting that it was gone, all of it gone. Prana died just before the last battle of the Clone Wars, caught and executed by Dooku the Traitor for espionage. Naum's master had been cremated with nearly one hundred other Jedi after the battle of Geonosis. The Temple lay in ruins and the life he knew, the life he loved and sacrificed for was dust and ashes in the air filters of Coruscant. The Jedi had been hunted out, exterminated, or turned against their own brethren in an orgy of fratricide. 

Mission after mission that left him soul-sick and weeping. The loss of life after life like stars winking out one by one in the night sky. 

_Wake up! I have to wake up! _

"Sleep, Naum Koghan." Abhaia walked his dreams in flowing silks the color of arterial blood, the filmy ghosts of her memories trailing behind her. 

"Abi, Abi, please don't do this. Please" He could save her. He could save himself if he saved her. All he wanted was to pull one soul from the abyss and breathe the Light in it back to life. "Please please Abi, come back" 

The rising wind from the sea howled through the caves and Naum's hands scrambled across unyielding rock as they tried to catch hold of the images in his dreams. 

Abi stood on the high cliffs, her scarlet silks like banner against the setting sun. The water was as blood, bodies bobbing in the waves, and Naum could feel night's cold advance. 

"Abi" he held out his hands in supplication, but night was upon them, stealing the color from her skin and turning the flaring scarlet to deepest black. The night itself contorted and Vader was there, draping her in a flowing black cloak, making her part of the darkness. 

Naum woke screaming and sobbing, giving voice to a grief held too long at arms length. He pressed his bloody hands to his face and wept uncontrollably, sick to the deepest part of his being of death and loss. 

Reaching out for Abi, he found only resignation and determination in equal parts. Vader was here, on Kal Madedo, his presence a black whirlwind drawing her in. Aggression and ferocity ripped through the night as duels were fought and lives lost. 

Stumbling to his feet he lurched into the room he last remembered being in. The communications equipment was charred and melted beyond repair, but it didn't matter any more. He could no more go back to the Council than he could spit diamonds, the only thing they wanted to save was themselves. 

Fine, he would leave them to it. 

Naum checked the charge on his saber. There would be killing done tonight and for the first time in decades, his mission was clear, the objective concrete. His eyes still leaked tears but his spirit was sure and serene as it had not been for a long time. The pledge of Knighthood rang in his heart as it had so long ago. 

"In the name of the Light, by the will of the Force, in memory of all who have stood here before me, I am a Knight of the Jedi order and I humbly serve." 

A light filled him, the shadows in him fleeing or being swallowed by the luminous tide. Lives hung on his actions, he could feel it, and he promised the future that he sensed that he would not allow them to perish. 

He sensed Abi to the west. Vader was moving toward her from the north. Other presences were tracking both from the south. 

Flinging himself up the metal stairs on the cliff face, he hit the headlands and started to run. 

~


	20. Symmetry and Imperfection - 19

Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 19

~

Vader wondered idly how long it had been since these so-called Jedi had sparred against anyone other than themselves. His current annoyance – Vader could not call the man an opponent without laughing - used a style that was more suited to theatrical duels than to actual combat. The man was busily engaged in wearing himself out with rushing attacks, feints that a child could read and much flourishing of his blade. 

No contest. No thrill. Vader could fight this pathetic excuse for a duel if he had been tranked to his eyeballs with Narcan or drunker than an ore hauler on payday. 

When the idiot made his next rush, Vader simply pivoted out of the way of the whirling blade and decapitated the fool with a simple stroke before his hapless opponent realized what happened. 

The head bounced into the gutter, the eyes blinked a few times in mortal consternation, and that was that. 

Now where was his apprentice? 

The bond he had set was strengthening nicely; it took no effort at all to read her. In a short time, he would be able to read everything about her with almost no limitations. While the Force did not enable one to actually read thoughts, some emotions were so strong and accompanied by such vivid images that it could be much the same thing. Abhaia was – as was any female – a world of secrets all to her self. 

Right now, Abhaia was busy with a duel all her own. As she was not in distress, he left her to it. 

Women were as fascinating as M'bin puzzle boxes. They had motivations, thoughts, feelings, instincts that no male would ever understand, and that might well dumbfound that hypothetical mind reader. At times, his interactions with female of his species made him wonder if indeed there were Gods and – more to the point – if they were all in on the joke. 

Unlike his master, Darth Vader was an admirer of the gender as a whole. He did not try to analyze them, or understand them; stubbing his toes and banging his head on the inscrutable held no appeal. With females one might walk in the door with one mystery and emerge with a half-dozen new ones, a lot more questions and a raging headache. Instead, he used their innate talents to his – and the Empire's - advantage. Saber Enterprises, a front for some highly complex intelligence operations had an employee base that was almost half female. The Empire's loss was Saber's exceptionally profitable gain. 

A barrage of ion cannon and turbolaser fire lit up the sky over the spaceport, chasing a Lambda-class shuttle into the night sky. The shuttle zigged and zagged, ducked and juked, eluding the fire. Squawks and irate chatter over the field command channel let him know that a dozen Jedi had stormed a landing station and commandeered the ship. 

The craft was nearly away when they blundered right into the crossfire from an ion cannon and were reduced to basic elements in a flash of white; this making Vader's job much less complicated. 

Just twelve more to go. Easy. 

Abhaia dispatched her opponent. 

_Eleven._

He turned west, moving toward his apprentice's signature. She was flagging, and he could feel the acidic ache of exhaustion through the bond. Rest would have to come first, and the time to permit her to regain some strength; the girl was running on fumes. Once she had rested, training – and the correction of a few erroneous perceptions - would begin in earnest. It would be very interesting to see how Sith teaching and methods adapted to a Healing-talented pupil. Through the entire line of Bane, and as far back as Vader could determine in his research, there had never been a Healer among the Sith and few females. 

Sith tradition held that the apprentice would seek out the master, and Abhaia had been all but lighting signal fires along her route. The odds against her had been daunting with groups of trained warriors chasing a glaringly untrained woman across the galaxy. Yet, she had managed not only to stay alive and free, but also dealt back death in payment for her suffering. Cunning, persistence, guile and stealth based on those qualities alone, Abhaia was a natural for the Sith. 

Again, Vader wondered about Abhaia's child. Even in her depleted state, she was still powerful. From what he understood of Healing, certain conditions required much time and intense effort to negate. While the girl might be able to heal any injury short of death, perhaps a complicated illness or defect had taken the infant's life. Something in the situation did not fit correctly, but the feeling of finality he had from her thoughts could not be anything other than death. 

Could it? 

A burst of aggression reached his senses and right on the heels of it, the third signature Vader had sensed surged to the fore. 

::: Stay away from her, Sith. ::: 

Well. It appeared that his opposite number was about to buy into the game; two Dark Jedi were closing on the Lightsider's position. 

::: Found a spine somewhere in the caves, Jedi? ::: Vader taunted, enjoying the feeling of conflict as the Jedi dueled against one of his own. 

That feeling was cut short as alarm jolted into his perception, followed by a flash of pain. A check on his apprentice told him that she had been ambushed, injured and was in a fight for her life. Flashes lit the sky to the west, near a span of fanciful titanium bridges. He could see one green and two blue blades flashing, lighting the fog as it began to roll in from the sea. 

There were four signatures ahead of him - two together and the other two apart. Vader ignited his blade and moved purposefully in the direction of the bridges, determined to cut his way there. 

~ 

Naum crossed blades with the man in front of him. The rhythm of thrust and parry and riposte was one he had danced from childhood with his saber humming the melody. The Form he used was an older one, less acrobatic and more workman-like in its approach, but not lacking in power. 

The man he faced used a rough style, cobbled together out of different Forms and as full of holes as Naum's faith. It seemed that his opponent had also copied the sartorial style of the Hu'uran Diktat, down to the moustache and goatee. Did every Darkling under Perran Jasc look like a holopostie for the benefits of eugenics? 

Unable to bring himself to even call him a Dark Jedi – to give him that connection to something that was supposed to be so much more - Naum felt filthy even sensing the man's signature. It was somehow oily and at the same time as virulent as plague, seeking to infect everyone it touched. Once more, he faced a 'brother' who made Vader look like a penitent. 

Once more, he faced a darker reflection of himself. 

"Leave here and I will let you live." The tone was appropriately menacing, but spoiled by the man's wide eyes, pallor, and copious sweating. "This is not a matter important enough for your consideration." 

"Which matter was that, the enslavement of women and children? A Healer – possibly the first in history – embracing the Dark side and slaughtering her way across the Rim?" Naum felt a completeness that he had not in years, a oneness with the Force and his past. "I will leave, but not until I have started to undo the harm that you and your associates have done." 

Naum drove the man back with a series of thrusts and slashes so rapid that the man could only block and retreat. When he tried to turn a crossblock into a cut at Naum's midsection, Naum parried and lunged – dropping to one knee and under the man's blade. 

All was still, the rush of the surf and hum of their blades the only sounds as the first fingers of fog began to grip the headlands. Naum's opponent fell to the ground, a smoking hole in his chest. The scent of carbonized flesh made Naum gag - the spin of memories through his mind matching the spinning nausea in his stomach. 

_The past will always have a hold on you, Naum. Just take care that it does not strangle you to death._

Naum's eyes snapped open and his head came up. For one moment, he was positive that he had sensed Prana; and in the next moment, he dismissed the thought. So lost he was in the past, that a spike of distress from Abi nearly knocked him to the ground. 

Pain - she'd been injured. Vader? No, the Sith was up to his chestplate in a duel of his own and Naum found himself in the odd position of not knowing who he should hope to win. He sensed Abi's desperation and could now see flashes of blue-green light moving across a span of the bridge complex called Angel's Wings. 

Absorbed in attempting to read Abi's status and keep a wary eye on the Sith, he almost missed a rushing attack from behind. Only a sense of brushing menace made him leap in a reverse somersault, coming down behind the would-be assassin with blade at ready. The man turned, smiling at Naum as if he had not just tried to cut him down. 

"Naum Koghan! So good to see you after so very long!" The man looked much like Naum himself, they might even have been mistaken for brothers. Indeed, on more than one mission they had presented themselves as such. 

"Keir Ganvry. Why am I not surprised to find you trying to sink a blade in my back?" Naum wasted no time, the blue blade of his saber flashed in a sideways figure eight, then Naum powered out a slash at the man's legs. "You'll pardon my haste, brother, but right now I have other things on my mind than exchanging false pleasantries with you." 

Keir twisted his arms, blocking the blow and flipping himself out of range. 

"Like killing your own family, Naum? We're Jedi. Brothers. I saw you cut Pakinal down like he was a Sith." The tone was wounded and nearly believable, but Keir's eyes were as cold as a serpent's. "We can still get out of this. Jasc ran to save his own hide. He abandoned us here, and we owe him nothing. If it's the witch you want, take her. Kill her, keep her, do as you wish, Perran only wanted the witch's get to begin with." 

Her 'get?' Could that mean what he thought? As in '_to beget_?' 

"What? She didn't tell you?" Keir sniggered. "One of the lads got himself a fine ride, paid for it with his balls and then with his head when she turned up pregnant. Cut down her own father and three others on her way out, too. Colder than a Sith's kiss, that one. Maybe you'll be the man to warm her up!" 

Naum's mind reeled. _Abi, why didn't you tell me?_

In the next second, the answer came to him; she hadn't told him because she couldn't tell him. The same way that she could not tolerate touch, the same way she could not trust anyone. For a moment, he all but gave up. How could he possibly think that he had it in him to redeem someone so horribly broken? 

How could he have thought to reconcile the Jedi who had so purposefully caused that breaking? Vader would seek redemption before this man standing in front of him. 

Under Naum's level stare, Keir's supercilious smile began to evaporate and fear began seep through. 

"We don't have to do this, Naum. We were brothers once, we could be again, fighting the Dark as Jedi should." 

Regret tinged Naum's voice, "And what if you have become the Dark that Jedi must fight?" 

"Your Council is a council of cowards, letting Jedi die like nerfs in an abattoir! We are trying to preserve a heritage and legacy worth more than worlds!" Keir spat. 

Both men jerked toward the northwest as a whirlwind of Dark power roared through the Force and snatched away four lives. Naum stared, stunned at Vader's power and control. 

"That is what we are fighting!" Keir's face was deathly white, his upper lip curled in a snarl of fear. "Only history can judge us, Naum! And if you are not with us, then you are against us!" 

The last word was punctuated with a charge and swing as Keir sought to use Naum's distraction. Naum stepped away from the charge and then back in, with a thrust that Keir barely parried. Moving with the parry and the semi-circular slash, Naum turned full circle as he used his body to gather momentum. Keir saw it too late and his block was not enough to stop Naum's blade from slicing a hand's length into his midsection. 

Keir crumpled around the wound, eyes glazing as she stared up at Naum. "What ever happened to redemption, Naum? You used to believe that you could change a blood adder, if you had the time." 

"I used to believe that, to some extent, I still do." His saber spun in his fingers. "I still believe that as long as there is memory of the Light, no spirit is lost to the Dark. But a blood adder is a blood adder, and all you can do is kill it before it bites." 

Keir's eyes had time to widen in fear, but that was all. Naum's blade stabbed down and found his former comrade's heart. This time, the stench of burning muscle did not fill him with nausea, only with sadness for what was and what might have been. 

In his mind, he could feel the Sith Lord watching and felt compelled to address him. 

::: I am not like you. ::: 

Vader's response was the mental equivalent of a mocking grin. 

Turning his back on the bodies, with the dense fog closing in around him, Naum ran for the bridges. 

~ 


	21. Symmetry and Imperfection - 20

Fog wrapped around the bridges of Angel's Wings, dulling the rainbow-hued titanium to gray, cloaking the wind-and-surf-wrought pillar of pure white angelstone that gave Angel Cove its name. A favorite spot for tourists, the pillar's graceful metal 'wings' spread the width of the small harbor – touching the Street of Flowers to the west and the so-called Quarter of the Households to the east. 

Time had worn the stone so that the pillar even resembled a figure facing out to sea with wind-whipped robes trailing behind. Just before the fog engulfed the span completely, a small figure in scarlet pressed against the stone – making it seem that the angel bled.

~

Her leg felt as if it was on fire. 

Abhaia had been in such a distracted state, that two of her grandfather's men had been able to jump down on her from one of the repulsor platforms. Wystran and Yso were two of the most fanatically loyal in 'the Project' and often acted as enforcers when Grandfather had a point to make. Yso's saber had cut deeply into the back of her left leg; the cauterized gouge ran from just above the bend of the knee to the middle of her thigh. Apparently, they were under orders to capture, not kill, and were intent on following them. Only a barely controlled leap from the walkway to the one below allowed her to escape. 

She had landed badly, with the injured leg giving way beneath her and tumbling her into a titanium railing. Now her ribs sent sharp barbs of pain with every breath, and it felt as if she were not getting enough oxygen.

Pressing against the cool stone, Abhaia took stock of the damage and cursed softly. Speed and agility were her only weapons; her fighting form was based on them. Wystran and Yso had done their homework; if she could not maneuver, then she could not hit the spots that would cripple her opponent. The fog covered her completely, turning everything around her a whitish gray.

Sound, oddly flattened and muffled reached her. If she could get to one of the weight-activated descent platforms

Biting her lip, she peered into the fog. Repairing the damage or looking for her opponents would leave her defenseless, even the lightest trance could give them the opportunity to gasdart her. Not even a Healer's metabolic control was proof against the blood gas-diffused tranquilizer; three seconds after injection and she would be unconscious.

Vader's approach felt like the coming of a cyclone; while he could find her with no effort, she had only the most general idea of his location. Angel's Wings had kilometers of walkways and levels - even with knowing where to find her, it could take him some time to get to her. Naum was a solid and determined presence homing in on her as if she were a landing beacon.

Abhaia was sorely puzzled – Naum should have been safely unconscious for at least eight hours. How had he fought off her compulsion?

Keeping her back to the smooth stone, Abhaia began to edge around the pillar. She kept her saber at ready, but did not ignite the blade.

In the mist, she found what she was looking for – a red circle denoted a drop platform and a blue one next to it an ascension platform. Stretching her senses, she felt through her healer's abilities for any life forms around her. Not even the most thorough shielding could stop a healer's sounding. 

Close, but she had to risk it. 

Rushing the platform, Abhaia dropped flat as it began to descend. At the terminus of its course, she lay utterly still for a minute before rolling off the platform and rushing the next one. Red and green flashes lit the fog in the direction of the Quarter – it seemed that Vader was closer than she assumed. Quelling the sudden urge to jump off the bridge and swim for freedom, she flattened against the platform as it began its leisurely descent. Wystran and Yso were midway between her and Vader, and Naum

_ old now, scarred by war but whole of spirit lay in his bed. The body that had housed his spirit for so long was now a shell he would soon leave behind. One could almost see the Light of his spirit shining through his skin like the sun through paper. They all gathered close, some of them old enough to remember the day he came to take them away from _

_the cold plains of sand stretched in all directions and the stars were as bright as diamonds on a jeweler's silk. Weeping, she lit the torch, sheltering it with her body against the scouring winds. She had wrapped him in his cloak, combed the mesas for oilwood and made the pyre in a small hollow between the dunes_

She lay gasping on the platform, shaken to her core by the strength of the Sight as well as the fact that it had come without her being prepared. The Sight had only come to her previously while in the deepest meditation; the only visions that were comparable were those she had while giving birth – and those had been as fearsome as they were confusing. No, these visions showed her even more firmly the path that she must take at whatever the cost to herself.

Abhaia rolled off the platform and ducked behind a load-bearing titanium pillar as she fought off the aftereffects of the Sight. Of all times, now it was critical that she be clearheaded. 

On the walkway immediately above her, two male voices engaged in a brief conversation. Muffled by fog, most of the words were indistinct but the tone was clear. Angry. Fearful. 

" ditched us to die, Yso!"

" the witch's doing loyal If we can get her "

" not trying two dead Jedi and a Sith whore bounty hunter's retirement"

Letting herself sample the emotions of her hunters, she judged that she had little chance of convincing them to let her go. 

The platform she had just used reached the end of its programmed wait period and began to ascend.

The voices stopped.

Abhaia cursed and ignited her blade.

~

"Die forever, Sith." 

The dying man's spit hit Vader's chestplate just as the red blade of his lightsaber cut the man cleanly in two and sent the halves of his body falling into the ocean far below. 

The dense fog covered the bay and headlands completely, allowing Vader to see less that three meters in any direction. The restless sea muttered and growled under his feet, while in the distance, he heard the hissing clash of blades as his apprentice fought for her life. The Jedi he had sensed was on the bridges, as well, moving to intercept Abhaia with a single-minded determination.

Vader reached for her with the Force, got a fix on her position and moved with all speed to get to her before the Jedi could. 

::: Who is it that you are trying to save, Jedi? ::: Vader mocked.

There was no answer other than a jumble of images.

Vader could sense the pinpricks of darkness within the man. It was almost like an image of white noise - a confusion of black, white, and gray randomly overlaid. The Jedi liked to think that he and Vader were nothing alike, but Vader saw the truth quite clearly – but for choices made, they were almost exactly alike. Bit by bit, the Jedi was having the veils of self-deception ripped from his sight, each gauzy lie falling away to reveal truth with all its brutal clarity.

In time, the Jedi's faith would break under the weight of that truth. What would become of him then depended on how strong he truly was. 

There was a brief flare in the Force accompanied by a roar and orange glow muted by the fog. Two more of the odd Darksiders flashed into whatever world awaited them. Now there were only two – the ones who were skirmishing with the girl.

Abhaia was flagging badly, injured and overwhelmed, it would be just a matter of time until 

A memory leaped from a dark space in his mind and before he could question its origin, he opened a link to Abhaia and sent a flood of energy into her. It was a very short-term measure, but would buy them the minutes they needed. Her opponents' shock took the form of curses and vigorous defense as Vader reached the set of repulsor platforms and began Force-leaping from one to the other, coming up on the walkway next to the broad span where Abhaia was fighting.

Even injured, her unique form was evident as she shunted a thrust from the smaller opponent aside, circling her blade into a block as the larger man came in with a powerful slash. Her grunt of effort was audible as her arm folded flat to her ribcage and she gasped for breath. Falling to one knee, she crossblocked a sweeping down-stroke and sent her opponent leaping backward with a quick cut at his legs.

Vader launched himself across the six-meter gap and joined the battle.

~

The speed with which a Jedi could move was the stuff of legend, but running from span to span in the thick fog, Naum Koghan felt as if he was getting exactly nowhere. Vader's taunting made the experience even more frustrating, and he wondered briefly if the Sith could somehow be clouding his mind.

_Or maybe it's that his shots are hitting awfully close to the mark?_

Naum shrugged away the prickles at the back of his neck and continued toward the clash of blades.

Abi would not have put those thoughts in his head if she did not want to be helped. That's what the plea for remembrance was, he knew it. The fog boiled in front of him and suddenly the battle was before him. He stopped, blinking and unsure at the sight. Abi, obviously injured, was holding off a man who looked to be from a high-grav world, while Vader was involved in an intricate duel with a light, fast opponent.

The hair on Naum's neck tried to stand on end. Someone once said that once you saw him fight you never forgot it, and it was true. Vader might have lost much in the furnace that forged him out of Anakin Skywalker, but strength, accuracy, and speed were not among them. The Sith Lord moved with all the power of a predator at the top of the food chain and it was easy to see why so many skilled and experienced Jedi had fallen under the blade of his lightsaber.

_If he's this good now, how good was he then?_ The thought was chilling.

The small man was pressed now. Vader's jabs and driving attacks were overwhelming his speed and ability to dodge. A barrage of stabs was barely parried, forcing him to defend instead of attack. The conclusion was inescapable. Vader locked blades with the smaller man, then shoved him back. The hissing of his breath never quickened as he brought his blade around in a blurred, flat arc of ruby light and sent the bisected corpse tumbling to the surf below.

The Sith stood between Naum and Abi, who had fought her way down the span and was dueling with her opponent on a tiered cascade of balconies linked with spiraled stairs that created the edge of one 'wing.' Vader dropped into fighting stance - weight forward, heels barely touching the ground, and waited.

Drawing a deep breath, Naum ignited his blade and stepped forward, his muscles unexpectedly tight and his breath short. 

"Fear is my weapon, Jedi. Your fear sings louder than your blade." Vader's taunt was well-placed. Naum was afraid, and ashamed of it. "No shame in fear. I have killed hundreds who were more powerful, more skilled, more determined, but very few who were as persistent."

Naum's retort was cut off by a man's scream. Abi's opponent lay on the platform minus one leg and Naum had the utterly inappropriate thought that the marine life forms below were eating well tonight. 

The man rolled onto his back, drawing what looked to be a holdout blaster from a pouch on his belt. Abi moved for in, twirling her blade to gain momentum for the killstroke. 

_ChuffChuffChuff!_ Three small, fast somethings hummed for Abi's torso.

Abi's blade flared twice before she was thrown back and spun to the left by the force of a projectile impacting the hollow of her shoulder.

"Son of a " Her lightsaber tumbled from her fingers, falling with a clang to the balcony below. Eyes closing, she slumped forward as her knees buckled, sending her stumbling into the railing and then over it. A thump denoting the terminus of her fall made Naum feel as if he had fallen with her. All the breath went out of him as Vader leapt over the railing to the walk below. 

Naum sprinted down the platform and leaped from the same spot from where Abi had fallen. Blade ignited, he came up to face Vader standing over Abi's limp form as a predator over a kill.

~


	22. Symmetry and Imperfection - 21

~

"Back off, Sith." Part of Naum protested that this was not the way of the Jedi even as he snarled at Vader.

Something that might have been a laugh issued from behind the black mask. "What do you hope to save, Jedi? Her or yourself?"

"To save even one from you"

"Even one who is already willingly apprenticed? Abhaia is Sith, I am her Master. If she was awake she would not deny this, but as we stand here the odds lengthen that she will never wake." Vader's tone was as matter-of-fact as if he told Naum that water was wet. 

"Abi is a Healer, she"

"Can heal her injuries only if she retains a degree of consciousness. That dart held a drug of some sort – feel for yourself, Jedi, she is not tranquilized but anaesthetized." 

Naum stretched out in the Force, calling to Abi, but found only a strange echoing emptiness. The feel of Abi was there, but there was no actual presence. The multiple injuries felt like cracks in her presence, and he could feel them draining her lifeforce away.

Drawing back, he shook his head. "You cloud my mind somehow, Sith. Deceiving, misleading"

"The only deceit you perceive is the one you cling to and the clouds in your judgement of your own devising," Vader snapped. "Look deeper, Jedi. You can see that I have no need to prevaricate when you and your kind delude yourself so ably."

Naum deactivated his saber, flinching inwardly as his fallen brother's barbed words struck spots left tender by his last exchange with the Council. 

"We all have our delusions, Vader. I prefer mine to yours." Naum wished he sounded more certain. 

"She dies, Jedi. Leave her with me and she will live." Vader drew his saber but did not ignite it. "Just in case your tender morality withers at the thought of leaving your 'one life', I can give you hundreds to assuage the pangs of conscience."

"Hundreds of lives? What are you going to do? Take a day off?"

"What I do brings order, while the Jedi hid in their temple like a _kupi_ in its shell and let the Trade Federation and Separatist sympathizers run the Republic to ruin." Vader's anger was palpable. Many of those responsible for multiple atrocities had never been brought to justice. "The rebels are a new name on old treason, Jedi, and you and yours embrace those who spilled our blood at whim."

Naum's jaw tightened, but he stood quiet. There was nothing that he could say to the contrary, watching the former Separatists and their allies held up as victims of Imperial brutality made him nauseous. 

Vader pulled a memory stick out from a pouch on his belt and held it up. "Has she told you much about where she's from?"

"Not much. I know only the barest of circumstances." And what he knew was horrible. The scene that he had watched play out in Jilla's would haunt him until the end of his days. 

"Hundreds of lives, Jedi. Women and children, imprisoned on a world in the Illoni Cluster. You could get them out." Vader balanced the stick on the tip of his finger. "Leave Abhaia with me, and these lives are yours."

Abi stirred, moaning, and Naum stepped forward only to find himself at the point of Vader's blade. 

"Or perhaps you think to obey your original orders and _neutralize_ her? So like the Council to dress murder and assassination in such palatable terms, and so like the Jedi to point to the blood on my hands while ignoring the slaughterhouse stench of their own judgments." 

"I wouldn't those orders are not the orders that I follow anymore." The words hurt, but as he said them, Naum felt himself severed from bonds that had begun to strangle him. The Force was never a nursemaid, but Naum had been raised by those who knew love, compassion and mercy. What if Master Jinn had never found him as an infant, or had found and passed him by as irrelevant?

What if he passed these lives by? What if he fought off Vader but was unable to Heal Abi? Her injuries were multiple and severe – she needed medical intervention. Vader could go to Illoni and then the people trapped there would likely look back on Jasc's rule with nostalgia, if the Sith Lord left any alive at all. But to leave Abi to Vader

The Sith might save her life, only to take her soul.

_But alive, there is always a chance for her. Deadis dead._

"All you have to do is to be willing to stand here and watch her die, Jedi, and that grows closer by the second," Vader said quietly. "One life or many lives. Your decision."

~


	23. Symmetry and Imperfection - 22

To Vader, the Jedi's decision was never in doubt. 

He knew how many Jedi knights – those who actually had been active in the field and not existing in the Temple like bugs under a rock - had chafed under the edicts of the Council, finding their hands tied when they had most needed to act. To call someone a 'fallen' Jedi was to paint with a broad brush as the appellation encompassed everything from acting counter to the most picayune or wrongheaded of orders to mass treason and planeticide.

This man, the foundations of his faith crumbling to dust, cast about desperately for solidity. The light within the Jedi was guttering in the winds sweeping the galaxy and he was searching for a way to rekindle the flame within himself by breathing to life dying embers within others. 

Like Abhaia, and like Vader himself – a few those who were lost to the Light carried a small bit of it, a memory of Light, but to be one with the Dark side meant that the spark could never flare to life. It would remain a small and precious gem - refracting warm-colored memories when the Dark offered only the stoniness of death and the finality of the blade.

The Jedi wrestled within himself, now, with all that he had experienced chafing against all that he had been taught. Vader would bet a hefty portion of his fortune that the Jedi had only very recently allowed his toes to creep off the official line and was suffering from the requisite guilt-induced impulse to atone. 

Vader felt the first stirrings of Abi's fight for consciousness. The extent of her injuries was severe - as powerful as she was there was little hope for her survival if she did not have medical support. Dueling with this Jedi would result in her death. Offering the Jedi the lives of Abhaia's heart-kin rid Vader of the Jedi as well as the necessity of getting rid of Abhaia's heart-kin some other way. This solution also insured Abhaia's good will – the tale of the events in the café had reached him along with a holo of the actual scene. It was deeply obvious that Abhaia's attachment to her origin ruled out any harm coming to those she still cared for.

The Jedi's gaze was fastened to the decking as he spoke, "What is to stop you from blowing me out of the sky once I left, or from ambushing me when I exit Illoni?"

"Only my word that I will not." He would never lower himself to lie. Once he was lied to, however, all bets were off and rules suspended – as more than one duplicitous adversary had discovered to their mortal sorrow.

The Knight's face reflected his inner struggle. Vader watched it all- anger, denial, guilt, resentment, bargaining, weighing, and finally acceptance and resignation colored with deep shame. He was walking away and leaving 'his' charge to his enemy, abandoning both his duty and his hopes.

The Jedi held out his hand as if offering his soul. Vader passed over the data stick and watched as the man pulled a small datapad from a belt pouch. Scanning the data, his face was empty of expression and when he spoke, it was in a voice devoid of inflection.

"I'll need a ship. A medium cruiser or freighter."

Acquiescence secured, Vader allowed himself to savor his triumph before reaching for his comlink.

~

Once, during the Clone Wars, Naum had undertaken a mission that had been compromised before he and his team ever left Coruscant. 

They had been ambushed, shot down over Bretea. The ship had begun to tear itself apart in the atmosphere, metal screaming as it was heated and rent from the frame of the vessel. The pilot managed to nurse the deteriorating craft through the heat of atmospheric entry with a set of failing thermal shields and hold it together long enough for the crew and passengers to bail out with paragliders. Naum had been about ready to become one with the Force as his feet left the deck and he began the count until he could pull the ripcord and slow his fall.

He felt as if he were in freefall now as Vader ordered a medunit to the bridges as well as an escort to bring Naum to the spaceport and see to his departure. The escort would pilot Naum to the first jump point outside of Kalini space and debark to one of the interdiction ships, from there Naum would be on his own.

_In many ways._

The fog was split by the high intensity lights of two Imperial transports. Both moved in close, maneuvering on their repulsors and grappled themselves to the stanchions of the bridges. The medshuttle disgorged two techs with a medsled and a floating, spherical EmDee unit. The men paused, warily eyeing the Sith Lord as he moved back and gestured them in.

One produced a scanner and visibly winced as he ran it down Abi's body, the other opened a compartment on the medsled and began pulling out infusion units and an injector gun. Intent on their patient, they even managed to ignore the Sith Lord all but breathing down their necks.

"Broken ribs, five through nine on the left side with intrusion into the lung. Impact injuries to the spleen, heart, kidney and liver, with marked contusions and bleeding. Major concussion with fracture to the parietal bone. Penetrating injury, cauterized, to the"

Her clothing cut away to lie like rags on the deck, Abi was loaded into the medsled. Telemetry devices, bone knitters, infusion units and breathing apparatus were being attached to her like macabre ornaments even as the tank began to fill with bacta. The unit sealed and was hustled up the gangway by the techs. They vanished inside and Naum felt a part of himself go with them as the ship disengaged and made haste for land.

He stood numb and staring as the fog swallowed the running lights of the transport.

"Jedi." Vader's voice shattered his daze and he turned to face the expressionless armor mask. "Your part of the bargain awaits." 

Naum could only nod and grip his data reader. The stormtroopers from the transport surrounded him and marched him into the ship at blasterpoint as Vader gave the squad leader his orders. Naum's last sight of the Sith before the fog blocked his view was of Vader calling Abi's lightsaber to his hand.

The ride to the port passed in the way all such rides do – in silence, with only the empty numbness in one's soul for company. The troopers did not so much as glance at him, and spoke to him only to rouse him from his stupor and herd him onto the landing platform. A plank-faced major in a naval uniform who presented him with a datapad displaying the available ships in the appropriate class met Naum at the foot of the ramp. 

Studying the offerings, Naum chose a Corellian YT-990 dual purpose freighter meant for both passengers and cargo carriage. Passing the datapad back to the major, he turned and studied the city as the man spoke quietly into his comlink. The fires were still burning brightly, casting a lurid glow against the fog. From time to time, the sound of blaster fire and light artillery could be heard.

A speeder pulled up and the major waved Naum into it, climbing in after him.

"Pad 9, east ring." 

They arrived just as the technicians were finishing transfer of fuelmass and unhooking the umbilicals. Another expressionless black-uniformed naval officer – a captain, this time - met them at the ramp and both of them escorted Naum into the ship. When they reached the wardroom, the captain continued forward to the cockpit while the major stopped Naum with a hand on his blaster. 

"Strap in, you," he ordered, pointing to the bank of acceleration couches meant for passengers. Naum obeyed as the major followed his example. Once secure, he spoke into his comlink again. 

"At will, Captain Sirril."

"Sir, yes, sir. Lift in five four" 

The whine of repulsors shrilled and then settled to a harmony with the powerful rumble of the escape drives. Naum leaned back against the padding and closed his eyes. He reached for Abi, to touch her, tell her he had not given up, to reassure her and maybe himself. A wall of Dark energy blocked the way - with Vader's signature laced all through it. 

"Three two "

The ship lifted smoothly at 'one' and rose through the atmosphere. Naum did not stir even when the insystem drives kicked in; instead he fell within himself, seeking the calm center and instead found only jagged edged disorder. Only the feel of their exit from hyperspace roused him to the unwavering gaze of the impassive major.

"Sir? The Bladewind is standing by to dock," the captain's voice came over the ship's comm. 

"Proceed, Captain." The major unstrapped himself from the couch as the ship jostled gently into position. 

Both men debarked hastily, leaving Naum alone in the vast emptiness of the large ship. As if in a dream, Naum undid his shock web and went forward to the cockpit, falling into the pilot's chair as if dropped. The jolt of undock roused him as the readouts on the status boards went from reds and yellows to green. Pulling the memstick from his datapad, he slipped into the reader on the navicomp and began to plot his course to Illoni. 

He moved away from the interdiction group - aware as he prepared to orient for the first jump, that they kept him targeted the whole time. Once clear, he powered up the hyperdrive, the steady hum of power peaking as he moved seamlessly out of realspace. 

Naum carefully set the controls for AI input, then put his head in his hands and wept like a lost child.

~


	24. Symmetry and Imperfection - 23

Abahia floated in the bacta tank like a child in the womb, hearing much the same sounds. She was fed by umbilici as she had once fed her child and as she had once been fed. Fading in and out of awareness of her condition, she made periodic attempts to repair the damage. The events on Angel's Wings were blurred both by the drugs and the cranial injury. 

She did, however, remember one thing.

Her master had given the lives of her people to Naum Koghan in return for her life. _How_ Vader had known she had no clue, but her people would be safe and free with Naum to care for and guide them. They had a chance to escape Illoni and run so far that Perran Jasc would never find them.

Now all that remained was to eliminate Perran Jasc and his scum. With any luck, she would be able to make her grandfather pay in pain for every injury, every death, every traumatized woman and child

::: Heal and grow strong, my apprentice. Vengeance will be yours. :::

Vader's touch on her mind still made her feel like she had jumped into a lift tube without waiting for the platform. It took an act of will to answer him – he might harbor some hard feelings for the headache she gave him.

::: My Master, even with my skills, these injuries will take much time to heal. What if :::

Vader's reply was firm. ::: Heal well, Abhaia, and take the time to do it. Your training will be demanding enough. :::

::: But, Master ::: What if Perran was able to gather the remnants of his forces? What if he took his case to other Jedi? All anyone had to say was 'Sith' and the elders all but frothed at the mouth and howled at the moons.

Her master had other ideas. ::: Sleep. ::: 

It took much effort to push the suggestion/order away and gather her arguments. ::: But ::: 

::: Sleep, my Stubborn One. :::

A wave of lassitude rolled down her body and wrapped her mind in a peaceful fog.

~

Vader watched as Abhaia's body slowly relaxed into sleep, shaking his head at the blurred protest she made when he put her under. She could be bone-headed stubborn, not to mention impatient, hasty, precipitous

The dead man laughed until Vader squelched him once more. 

The patience of a healer was much in evidence; even the scant training she possessed had been complex and lengthy. Healer training took decades, even when it started in adolescence. Abhaia had apparently been trained from early childhood – one of the reasons that he had thought her to be much older than she actually was. 

Eyeing the readouts from her telemetry, he could see the areas of damage were considerable. He would need a safe place to keep her while she healed, but still have her to hand for training. 

A thought popped into his head. 

He considered it.

He visualized it.

He quickly suppressed it and denied its existence.

The idea refused to be banished. For every reason against, his mind produced three in favor. It would either be one of the best ideas that he ever had or one of the absolute worst - but in the end, he could see no other alternative.

All but growling to himself, Vader stalked to the comm to place a holotransmission to his nemesis, his enduring aggravation, his opinionated, annoying, impudent, egotistical and long-term generalized pain in the rump – his Archivist.

~

Perran Jasc moved through the forms of saber combat in his private quarters aboard the abandoned intel platform. Sheer rage sent scarlet bolts across the perfection of the Force and only the ancient discipline allowed him to gradually calm himself.

A rout. A bloody, costly rout with thirty-eight men dead and all because of a girl he should have disposed of years ago. When Perran had tried to get a feel for where she might be, he had slammed headlong into a cordon of Dark power – the Sith whore was with her master now, Vader's signature proclaimed ownership.

Brilan had dispatched probe 'droids to Illoni. Small ships had been sighted skipping in and out before they had left. Brilan wanted to be sure that the small and tattered armada was not returning to an armed welcome.

Perran finished his form and folded to rest on the mat, at peace in his own mind once more. He would gather his scattered forces and return to Illoni to retrieve his genestock. They would find another world on which to complete the work. 

~

Some fancy flying had been required to get him in, but now Naum was close to the ending of a part of his journey. The landing beacons of the colony below were active and there was no defense grid lighting up his sensor array. Some barely adolescent boys had challenged him, making grandiose threats that were quickly silenced when Naum put a plasma torpedo onto the peak of a mountain nearby.

The 990 was a large ship, but it fit comfortably on the landing pad. A crowd of boys awaited him in the cold of new dawn, sabers at the ready, their bravado like banners against the brightening sky. 

They were unamused and indignant when he fired a tangle-web gluing them to the spot and snatched their lightsabers away. Part of him felt badly about using his powers on children, but a more rational side told him that he did not have much time before unfriendly someones showed up in the Cluster.

"Where is everyone else?" he asked the nominal leader of the would-be-warriors.

The dark-eyed lad's retort was a sneer and a comment about Naum's sexual proclivities.

Naum put one hand on his saber and looked at the boy. Whatever the expression was on his face, Naum wished very much to see it as the boy turned several shades paler and stammered out the information. 

Without a word, Naum turned on his heel and walked toward the 'Quarters' to which the boy had referred. More boys attempted to engage him in combat, but with the Force, Naum simply stuck them to the walls of the surrounding buildings. The boys could break the bindings only by becoming one with the Light side of the Force, it saddened Naum to think that some of them would be there for a very long time.

'The Quarters' was a line of drab blown-plascrete buildings behind energy fencing. He could see women and mostly female children behind the transparent violet curtains of power. They took one look at him and ran. 

"Wait! Wait, please!" The fear on their faces pulled a response from him. "Please! Abhaia sent me!"

One heavily pregnant woman stopped and turned, shaking off her companion's plucking at her sleeve and walked toward Naum. She stopped an arm's length away from the shimmering purple power field and looked him up and down. Her presence was strong in the Force, but at the same time vague – as if she had never learned to use her power.

"The Healer sent you?" The hope in those words brought tears to his eyes. "Where is Abi? Is Neve with her?"

"Abi" All the words he wanted to say slammed into the lump of shame and grief in his throat, choking him. "She wanted you all safely out of here out of reach"

" 'Abi wanted' " The woman was now joined by other women, creeping up to them like feral felinids.

"Is she"

"Oh, Light"

"Abi's dead"

"Neve must be, too"

Someone in the back started crying quietly - the kind of crying where one must weep but knows no solace with come after it.

"How many are you? I have a ship" Not one. He refused to leave so much as one behind even if he had to cold-sleep them in the escape pods.

A tall woman with a child on one hip and a swollen belly spoke. "Three hundred and three women. The crèche has about one hundred and fifty children between the ages of three and nine, and we have ninety infants under the age of two in the quarters." 

"There are still sixty-odd in the slave pens," called another. "Perran damn-him-to-Sith-hell didn't get a chance to load them up before they all ran out of here."

"What about the boys?" The crowd was growing larger by the moment.

"Leave them!"

"Torturer's apprentices!"

"Their mothers would tell you the same."

"We are their mothers!"

"I'm going to take the fence down. You'll be able to come and go as you please, but I do need your aid." Naum held up his hands and the women quieted. "We will need food and a full load of water. Do any of you have experience with environmental systems?"

Hands went up.

"I know environmental"

"I was a navigator for the Saphrine Line"

By nightfall, the freighter's holds were filled with food and clothing. The Healers had inspected the cold-sleep chambers and had lists of volunteers. Naum had three shifts of crew picked out had appointed a quartermaster to assign compartments. Most of the boys were staying behind; those who wanted to come were on probation.

By the grace of the Force, cold-sleep and a shoehorn, everything and everyone would fit. 

Sometime before dawn, he sat in the cockpit and watched the moons fall below the horizon. Total darkness descended on the landing grid before Naum registered a sight that literally took his breath away. From deep in the heart of the Illoni Cluster bands of glowing gases and heated particles lit the night sky. From some of these bands, dark fingerlike projections extended upward, the tips glowing with the brilliant blue of hot, young stars. These new stars would burn hot and fast, blowing apart in wild novas when other, calmer stars were contemplating middle age. But in that dying, these stars made the elements of life – minerals and compounds found in being after being in race after race from oxy-breathing humans to the complex methane exchanging silicate creatures of Iis. These young ones would die so that unimaginable eons into the future, some other life might come into being. 

It should have been of comfort to him, but instead he could only remember the blue of her eyes and beg the gods he did not believe in for something he could not name.

~

End

~


End file.
